Estrutura de assembleias de formigas em ecossistemas de areia branca em diferentes escalas espaciais na Amazônia

Abstract

The Amazon, the most diverse terrestrial biome on the planet, is shaped by historical events and environmental heterogeneity. Plants and animals have specialized in different types of vegetation, such as terra-firme forests, flooded forests, and white-sand ecosystems (WSEs). These ecosystems, characterized by nutrient-poor soils and low productivity, harbor highly adapted and often endemic species. However, ant diversity in these environments remains largely unknown. Given their ecological importance, ants are an ideal group to study species interactions and their responses to environmental variations. This thesis investigated the structure and composition of ant assemblages in WSEs of the Brazilian Amazon at different spatial scales. In the first chapter, we examined how the diversity of ground-dwelling and arboreal ants is influenced by vegetation structure along a white-sand vegetation gradient. The second chapter explored how habitat structure and biogeographic processes affect ant assemblages in open campinas and white-sand forests across two regions. In the third chapter, we presented the first comprehensive survey of arboreal and ground-dwelling ants in campinas. We found that beta diversity was dominated by species turnover, and habitat structure influenced the composition of both ground-dwelling and arboreal ants. These findings highlight the need for conservation strategies that consider the complexity and heterogeneity of white-sand ecosystems to preserve their biodiversity.