Ants as indicators of minesite rehabilitation on Groote Eylandt, 2014

[摘要] Ants are widely used as bio-indicators in environmental monitoring programs because of their high diversity, ecological importance and sensitivity to environmental change. A previous (2010 - 2012) study of ants on Groote Eylandt showed that ant species composition at rehabilitation sites was not converging on that at unmined reference sites, suggesting that ecosystem development at rehabilitation sites was not occurring as desired. The present report describes the results of further ant sampling during 2014 at 15 minesites undergoing rehabilitation and 10 unmined reference sites on Groote Eylandt, for informing ongoing assessments of rehabilitation success.A total of 85 ant species from 28 genera were recorded. Ant species composition at rehabilitation sites was very different to that at reference sites, and there was no relationship between the age of rehabilitation sites and their similarity to reference sites.Our findings show a lack of systematic convergence of rehabilitation sites towards reference sites over time. The species occurring exclusively or primarily at rehabilitation sites include those that arecharacteristic of very long-unburnt habitat, and this points to an absence of fire as a driving factor behind a lack of ecological convergence with reference sites. Such a lack of ecological convergence of rehabilitation sites towards reference sites because of long-term fire exclusion has also occurred at minesites elsewherein northern Australia, and has been shown to represent a serious fire risk. This problem can only be addressed by introducing fire to rehabilitation sites. A dedicated research program is required to identify optimum fire management protocols.

[发布日期] 2014-12-16 [发布机构] CSIRO

[学科分类] 地球科学(综合)