Woyciechowski M.

English

University of Szeged

ANTS (HYMENOPTERA, FORMICIDAE) OF THE GLADES IN THE TATRA MTS (THE CARPATHIANS) M. Woyciechowski Woyciechowski, M. (1993): Ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of the glades in the Tatra Mts.(the Carpathians). - Tiscia 27, ¡7-22. Abstract. Fourteen species of ants have been found within the area of 23 glades in the Polish part of the Tatra Mts. The number of ant species and the density of nests are greater in sheep-grazed glades than in the other, non-grazed glades. The number of species is positively correlated with increasing altitude. Hitherto two ant species: Myrmica lobicomis and Formica picea have not been recorded from the Polish Tatra Mts. The preservation of Tatras glades, artificially cleared in natural forest, by moderate grazing seems to keep a greater variety of habitats and simultaneously greater diversity of ant species. Key words: ant community, open habitat, glade utilization. M. Woyciechowski, Bee Research Department, Agricultural University, 31-425 Krakow, Al. 29 Listopada 52, Poland Introduction Data concerning the distribution of ants in the Polish part of the Tatra Mts are scarce and were often compiled either in the 19th c. (Nowicki, 1864, 1867; Wierzajski, 1868, 1874) or at least 60 years ago (Kulmatycki, 1920; Lomnicki, 1931). Only few information on the distribution of previously recorded species can be found in later works (Dluski and Pisarski, 1971; Pisarski, 1971, 1975). The distribution of ants in the Tatra Mts is lim-ited mainly to open habitats. In forest associations, ant nests can be found almost exclusively in the vicinity of non-forest associations or, temporarily, in windfall areas. The Tatra glades were created artificially on land formerly occupied by lower (up to ca. 1250 m a.s.l.) and upper (up to ca. 1550 m a.s.l.) mountain forest associations. Their presence there was stabi-lized by regular grazing or moving, combined with organic fertilization. However, such utilization of most of the glades was abandoned in the sixties of this century. As a result, most of the glades started to become overgrown with forest relatively soon (in ca. 30 years) (Dziewolski, 1985; Michalik, 1986), thus diminishing the area of open habitats, infre-quent in the mountain forest associations and pri-marily limited to rocks, screes or peat-bogs. The aim of the present study was to 1) assess the species composition and quantitative relation-ships of the ant in glades of the Polish part of the Tatra Mts; 2) assess the influence on those insects of environmental conditions connected with the altitude and the mode of utilization (grazing, mow-ing) or its lack. -Study area and methods The research on the ants was conducted be-tween June and August in 1982-1984. It took place in 23 of the several dozen glades situated within mountain forest associations of the Polish part of the Tatra Mts (Western Carpathians) (Fig. 1). Single stones, rocks, small, man-made mounds of stones and fallen trees were included in the study area. On the other hand, ants collected from plant associa-tions of rocky turf-on-spree type glades or their vi-cinity were not included. The glades were selected according to their dis-tribution within the various plant association zones and their utilization or its lack. The latter criterion helped to divide them into three groups: grazed glades, mown glades and non-utilized glades. Pas-ture (mostly sheep) was re-introduced in the glades of the grazed category only several years ago. Those mown were thus treated regularly in most of 17 TISCIA 27 Fig. 1. The distribution of the studied glades in the Polish paît of the Tatra Mts. 1 - country border, 2 - border of the Tatra National Park, 3 - streams (the number describe the glades as listed in Table I.). their area, usually once a year. The non-utilized glades have been left non-grazed or unmown for at least a dozen or so years and were overgrown with at most single tree seedlings. Only two glades, situ-ated outside the Tatra National Park (Fig. 1) have been mown and grazed (mostly by cattle) with no interruption for many years. The ants were collected in 10 to 30 plots (10 m^) in each glade, according to the size of the glade. The plots were combed as precisely as possi-ble for all ant nests. This method was used in 13 glades of a total of 3100 m2 . Additionally, in all the 23 glades, it was attempted to find as many nests as possible on the whole area of each glade, with par-ticular care in the places where the probability of discovering them was the greatest. It is latter method that yielded a qualitatively richer material. The altitudes were recorded for each nest found. Also, foraging ants were collected during the search for nests. If a species was represented in a glade by foraging individuals only, this information was treated as if one nest of the foraging species were found, without any data on its altitude. Single repre-sentatives of sexual castes were not included in the results. Results A total of 14 ant species was recorded from 23 Tatra glades. Of those, Myrmica ruginodis, Formica lemani, M. scabrirtodis and M. rubra were the most numerous and present in the greatest number of the glades. Nests of the remaining species were found in lesser numbers and in less than a half of the glades studied (Table 1.). Two of the species recorded, M. lobicornis and F. picea have not been reported so far from the Tatra Mts. M. lobicornis was found in seven glades. Two nests of F. picea were found in a tall peat-bog called Molkowka. It was established that the number of ant spe-cies present in the glades is positively correlated with the area of the glades (Spermán test; rs=0.586, df=20, P<0.01; Table 1.). The Bialy Potok glade was excluded from the evaluation of this correla-tion, as its area was greater than almost twice that of the other large glades, and because of its situ-ation in the vicinity of busy roads and settlements. The greatest number of ten species was recorded in the non-utilized Przyslop Mietusi glade, standing apart from the other glades because of its 18 TISCIA 27 greatest habitat differentiation. The nests of most of those species were found on the southern slopes of the glade, among scant vegetation covering dry, shallow, rocky terrain. Excluding this glade from the considerations, the average number of species found in all grazed glades was 6.1, in mown glades 4.8 and in non-utilized glades 3.1. The difference in the number of species inhabiting the three glade groups is of statistic significance (Kruskal-Walis test; T=6.392, df=2, P<0.05). Table 1. Percentage of ant species and number of nests (N) found in the Tatra glades (each glade with its approximated area in ha, type of utilization: g - grazed, m - mown, η - non-utilized, and the average altitude of nests found, respectively). Glade a b с d e f в h ¡ i к I m η Ν 1. Chocholovska 19 g 1139 21 38 15 2 2 15 7 47 2. Molkowka 15g 940 57 17 10 8 9 9 23 3. Niznia Kominiarska 8 g 1144 3 5 52 10 5 15 40 4. Bialy Potok 40 g 920 20 60 20 5 5. Stara 3 n 1100 100 1 6. Smytnia 5 n 1125 17 50 33 6 7. Uplaz 12 n 1280 50 50 4 8. Pizyslop Mietusi 11 n 1152 4 4 50 4 4 4 4 4 11 4 26 9. Malej Laki 12 n 1183 4 64 4 8 4 16 25 10. Kondratowa 13 m 1367 4 32 4 7 14 4 35 28 11. Kalatowki 13 g 1179 2 2 45 30 17 4 53 12. Kasprowa 4 n 1231 11 89 9 13. Jaworzynka 10 n 1091 11 22 56 11 9 14. Olczysko 8 m 1075 38 8 4 4 8 21 17 24 15. Krolowa 4 n 1300 100 1 16. Sucha 5 g 1130 61 8 8 8 15 13 17. Szalasiska 2 g 1115 9 9 37 27 18 1 18. Kopieniec 9 g 1249 3 67 3 3 6 18 33 19. Wawrzeczkowa Cyrhla 9 m 915 8 25 50 8 42 24 20. Pnzednia Soltysia 5 n 1314 4 8 25 13 8 42 24 21. Waksmundzka 12m 1358 69 8 23 13 22. Szalasiska Кору 2 n 1140 57 42 7 23. Rusinowa 17 g 1235 17 44 14 3 8 3 8 3 36 Total number of nests 10 51 189 57 4 19 4 15 1 6 16 14 62 2 450 a - Manica rúbida; b - Myrmica rubra; с - M. ruginodis; d - M. scabrinodis; e - M. rugulosa; f - M. ¡obicornis; g - M. sulcinodis; h -Leptothorax acervorum; i - L. muscorum;j - Camponotus liercuîeanus; к - Lasius niger; 1 - L.flavus; m - Formica ternani; η - /' picea The evaluation of ant nest density was per-formed for 13 glades (Table 2.); only 9 species, of which 4 were represented by single nests, were found on 3100 m . 39 nests of the most numerous species, M. ruginodis, were found in 7 grazed glades over a total of 1540 m2 . Only 20 nests of that species were found in the other glade categories over a total of 1560 m2 ; this would point to a sig-nificant difference of their density in both types of the glades (χ2 = 5.360, df =1, P<0.05). As the num-ber of the nests of the other ant species was insig-nificant, they were treated jointly; thus, only 7 nests were found in the non-grazed glades, while 52 in the grazed ones. In view of the study area, this y Table 2. Density of ant nests per 100 m and total number of nests found (N) in the Tatra glades (each glade with its type of utilization - as in Table I. - and area in which the search was conducted, in ra^). Glade a b с d e f R h i N 1. Chocholowska g 300 1.7 2.0 1.7 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 20 3. Niznia Kominiarska g 240 0.4 1.7 1.3 8 8. Przyslop Mietusi η 300 1.0 2.7 11 9. Malej Laki m 300 1.7 5 10. Kondratowa m 300 1.3 0.3 0.7 7 11. Kalatowki g 300 0.3 5.3 4.3 3.0 39 13. Jaworzynka n 130 0.3 1 14. Olczysko m 130 0 15. Krolowa n 100 0 16. Sucha g 100 0 18. Kopieniec g 300 0.3 3.0 1.3 14 21. Waksmundzka g 300 0.7 0.3 3 23. Rusinowa g 300 0.7 1.3 1.0 0.3 10 a - Myrmica rubra; b - M. ruginodis; с - M. scabrinodis; d - M. rugulosa; e - M. ¡obicornis; i - M. sulcinodis; g - Leptothorax acervorum; h - Lasius niger; i - Formica ¡emani. 19 TISCIA 27 9 13 β 1β 21 10 3 аз 11 1 в ta 21 9 LO 3 23 1 8 ia 11 Fig. 2. Similarity of myrmecofauna of 10 Tatra glades evaluated basing on the search of plots, resulting from species presence (A) and nest density (B). yields a highly significant difference in density (χ2 = 29.728, df = 1, PO.OOl). The results obtained in nest density evaluation (the glades with zero trials were excluded) were used in a dendrogram of glade similarity, calculated basing on the information of the species' presence (Fig. 2A) or on their nests' density per 100 m 2 (Fig. 2B). In both dendrograms, the glades grouped into two categories, the grazed and the non-grazed, with two exceptions: the Kopieniec glade (18), which entered the non-grazed group (Fig. 2A) and the non-utilized Przyslop Mietusi glade (8) among the grazed glades (Fig. 2B). In order to establish the influence of the altitude on the distribution of the particular species, the nests were categorized according to their situation below or above the altitude of 1250 m a.s.l. (Table 3.). Only the Molkowka glade was excluded from these considerations, its being a natural peat-bog and not an artificially created glade. Of the 13 spe-cies, all were found below 1250 m a.s.l., while only 9 above that altitude. Discussion Two of the 14 ant species recorded in the glades (Table 1.) were not mentioned in the list of the 16 species reported by Lomnicki (1931) from the Polish part of the Tatra Mts. The first of these is F. picea from the Molkowka peat-bog, now utilized as grazing ground, though it is a natural non-forest association, with a preserved, typically peat-bog floras. F. picea is rare in Poland, only found in peat-bogs (Dluski and Pisarski, 1971). This species has been so far unrecorded from the Polish part of the Carpathians. The nests of the second species, M. lobicornis, were found in almost one in three of the glades. It is thus a species frequent in the glades; it can be surmised that the reports on the presence of the morphologically related M. schencki, reported Table 3. Percentage of ant nests found in the Tatra glades below and above 1250 m a.s.l., with (parenthesized) the number of studied nests of each species (the lowest altitude of a nest was 915, the highest - 1450 m a.s.l.). Species Up to 1250 Above 1250 1. Manica rúbida (9) 78 22 2. Myrmica rubra (37) 97 3 3. M. ruginodis (189) 85 15 4. M. scabrinodis (53) 79 21 5. M. rugulosa (4) 25 75 6. M. lobicornis (14) 83 17 7. M. sulcinodis (1) 100 8. Leptothorax acervorum (14) 100 9. Lep. muscorum (1) 100 10. Camponotus herculeanus (6) 100 11. Lasius niger (15) 93 7 12. L.flavus (14) 86 14 13. Formica lemani (59) 54 46 20 TISCIA 27 by Lomnicki (1931) from the Tatra Mts, the region of Zakopane and Toporowa Cyrhla, concern in fact M. lobicornis. The severe climatic conditions of the Tatra Mts are the reason for the poverty of the ant fauna there, in comparison with the other parts of the Carpa-thians, e.g. with the much smaller Pieniny Mts (46 species; Koehler, 1951; Czechowska, 1976), Male Pieniny Mts (38 species; Woyciechowski, 1985, and unpublished) or Bieszczady Mts (30 species; Parapura and Pisarski, 1971). Four species are the most frequent ones in Tatra glades, whether these are utilized or not: M. ruginodis, F. ¡emani, M. scabrinodis and M. rubra. Both the dominant spe-cies and the complete list (Table 1.) are similar to those of the glades in the Bieszczady Mts, which, similarly to the Tatra glades, were created in pri-marily for the scant forest terrain. The Tatra glades are characteristic for the scant presence of the nests of L. niger and L. flavus, dominant in glades and pastures of the other regions of the Caipathians (Parapura and Pisarski, 1971; Petal, 1974; Czechowska, 1976; Woyciechowski and Miszta, 1976; Woyciechowski, 1985). The parts of the glades overgrown with rich grassy vegetation are usually completely deprived of ant nests. This can be observed in most non-utilized and mown glades. Also empty of ants are the fragments of glades covered with compact Alchemilla sp. or Rumex alpinus, as sheep rarely graze on those species. Such associations can be observed not only in non-utilized glades such as Przyslop Mietusi or mown ones such as Mala Laka, but also in grazed ones such as Niznia Kominiarska. The diversity of habitats of particular importance for the ants was mostly impoverished in the glades mown now or in the past. Large fragments of those glades have been deprived of single rocks or stones and nests of many ant species can be found on mounds made of those stones or on small embankments. In some glades, e. g. Chocholowska, such places yield much higher nest densities, and are the almost sole habitats occupied by the ants in some other ones, e. g. Mala Laka or Olczyska. Parts of many glades, especially steep, insolated slopes of shallow, rocky terrain, are convenient habitats for ant nests whether they are presently utilized or not. This is the case in glades such as Przyslop Mietusi, Kopieinec or Szalasiska Кору. The above-mentioned reasons make more diffi-cult a straightforward evaluation of the type of glade utilization on the ants. It can be stated, how-ever, that the number and density of their nests is higher in grazed glades than in mown or non-util-ized ones (Table 2, Fig. 2). In spite of that it has not been determined that there exist species avoiding or preferring glades of any type of utilization. It seems then that the mode of glade utilization or its lack could determine a particular ant species composi-tion (Table 1.). This is due to the fact that grazing increases the area of habitats adequate for the ant nests. The size of the glades and its altitude further complicate the evaluation of the influence of graz-ing or mowing. The result to the effect that the area of a glade is of some significance for the diversity of the species which inhabit it is not surprising; the probability of finding different type habitats in a given glade increases with its area. Also increase the odds for survival of such local, small popula-tions, endangered with elimination in the extreme environmental conditions. These conditions become worse with the altitude, so that less species are found in higher glades, or even higher parts of glades (Table 3.). Particularly invulnerable to alti-tude-connected factors is F. lemani, a species sig-nificantly increasing its domination in higher glades (Tables 1. and 3.). The preservation of the Tatra glades is of aes-thetic, cultural and economic value, and does not strives to preserve the natural biocenoses. The bio-logical factors are significant because of the fact that the glades increase the area of the non-forest habitats, the natural associations of which occupy only a small part of the mountain forest zone. The preservation of the glades would thus increase the diversity of the local ants. References Czechowska, W. (1976): Myrmekofauna Pieninskiego Parku Narodowego (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). - Frag. faun. 21, 115-144. Dluski, G. M. and Pisarski, B. (1971): Rewizja polskich gatiinkow mrowek (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) ζ rodzaju Formica L.-Fragm. faun. 16, 145-224. Dziewolski, J. (1985): Zagadnienia wtornej sukcesji lasu na polanach Tatrzanskiego Parku Narodowego. - Chronmy Przyr. ojcz. 42, 5-10. Koehler, W. (1951): Fauna mrowek Pieninskiego Parku Narodowego. - Warszawa. Kulmatycki, W. (1920): Mrowki niektorych okolic Malopolski. -Spraw. Kom. Fiz. 53-54, 157-172. Lomnicki, J. (1931): Przeglad mrowek (Formicidae) Tatr polskich. - Pol. Pismo Ent. 10, 97-101. Michalik, S. (1986): Problemy ochrony biocenoz polan reglowych w parkach narodowych polskich Karpat. - Chronmy Przyr. ojcz. 42,16-27. Nowicki, M. (1864): Przyczynek do owadniczej fauny Galicji. -Krakow. Nowicki, A. (1867): Zapiski ζ fauny tatrzanskiej. - Spraw. Kom. Fiz. 1, 197-206. Parapura, E. and Pisarski, B. (1971): Mrowki (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) Bieszczadow. - Fragm. Faun. 17, 319-356. 21 TISCIA 27 Petal, J. (1974): Analysis of a sheep pasture ecosystem in the Pieniny Mountains (the Carpathians) XV. The effect of pasture management on ant population. - Ecol. pol. 22, 679-692. Pisarski, B. (1975): Katalog fauny Polski - Formicidae. - PAN Warszawa: pp. 1-83. Sokai, R. R. and Sneath, P. A. (1963): Principles of numerical taxonomy. - Freeman and Co., San Francisco - London: pp. 359. Wierzejski, A. (1868): Przyczynek do fauny owadow blonkoskizydlych (Hymenoptera). - Spraw. Kom. Fiz. 2, 108-120. Wierzejski, A. (1873): Dodatek do fauny blonkowek (Hymenoptera). - Spraw. kom. Fiz. 8, 253-273. Woyciechowski, M. 1985. Mrowki (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) Malych Pienin - Kaipaty. - Acta Zool. Cracov. 28, 283-296. Woyciechowski, M. and Miszta, A. (1976):, Spatial and seasonal structure of ant communities in a mountain meadow. - Ekol. pol. 24, 577-592. 22 TISCIA 27 

Ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of the glades in the Tatra Mts (the Carpathians)

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Ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of the glades in the Tatra Mts (the Carpathians)

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