Counting ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): biodiversity sampling and statistical analysis for myrmecologists

作者：Nicholas J. Gotelli, Aaron M. Ellison, Robert R. Dunn, Nathan J. Sanders · 发表于：Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.25849/myrmecol.news_015:013 · 被引用次数：226 · 研究领域：Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior、Plant and animal studies、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

Biodiversity sampling is labor intensive and is especially challenging for myrmecologists, because the sampling units (individual workers) do not correspond in a simple way to the natural units of diversity (individual nests). Because it is usually not possible to reach a sampling asymptote for ants, comparisons of species richness among collections have to be carefully standardized for the number of individuals and number of samples examined. Asymptotic estimators allow for extrapolation to an estimated asymptote of species richness, and rarefaction curves permit meaningful comparisons of samples by interpolating data to a standardized number of sampling units. Winkler sacks of leaf litter and specialized traps for arboreal ants often yield distinctive sets of species in tropical and subtropical latitudes. These microhabitats are best treated as distinctive assemblages that can be compared with stratified sampling. Within other habitat types, different baiting and sampling methods yield similar, but not identical sets of species, and many authors have advocated using a diversity of methods to gain the greatest coverage of species. However, many of the distinctive species that are sampled by a particular method are rare, and are just as likely to have been found with other sampling methods. The estimated similarity in composition of ants sampled by different methods in the same habitat is probably greater than has been appreciated. Recent published comparisons of sampling eff...