Recent perspectives on ants as bioindicators: A review

Abstract

Intensive exploitation of natural resources and the resulting impacts on pristine habitats have led to calls from the scientific community and the general public to measure or monitor the level of these environmental impacts. The indicator qualities of terrestrial invertebrates are widely recognized in the context of detecting ecological change associated with human land-use. However, the use of terrestrial invertebrates as bioindicators remains more a topic of scientific discourse than a part of land-management practice, largely because their inordinate numbers, taxonomic challenges and general unfamiliarity make invertebrates too intimidating for most land-management agencies. Terrestrial invertebrates will not be widely adopted as bioindicators in land management until simple and efficient protocols have been developed that meet the needs of land managers. There are several characteristics that an indicator species must have, the most notable being ease of measurement, sensitivity to environmental stress, and predictable responses to environmental stress. Ants are increasingly being recognized as useful tools as bioindicators for land managers to monitor ecosystem health conditions. This group has useful characteristics for successful indication and monitoring of environmental impacts, including widespread distribution, high abundance, importance in ecosystem functioning, ease of sampling, and latively well-known taxonomy and ecology. Therefore, in the current narrative review of literature we aimed describe and delineate current perspectives on use of ants as bioindicators.