Diversity of Ants and Termites of the Botanical Garden of the University of Lomé, Togo

Abstract

Ants and termites are used as bioindicators in many ecosystems. Little knowledge is available about them in Togo, especially ants. This study aimed to find out how ants and termites could be used to assess the restoration of former agricultural land. These insect groups were sampled within six transects of 50 × 2 m2 (using pitfall traps, monoliths, baits for ants and hand sampling for termites) in two consecutive habitats: open area (grassland) and covered area (an artificial forest). Seventeen termite species and 43 ant species were collected. Seven ant species were specific to the covered area against four for the open area, while four unshared species of termite were found in the open area against three in the covered area. The presence of unshared species was linked to vegetation, as Trinervitermes (Holmgren, 1912), a grass feeding termite, was solely found in open area. Also, for some ant species like Cataulacus traegaordhi (Santschi, 1914), Crematogaster (Lund, 1831) species, Oecophylla longinoda (Latreille, 1802) and Tetraponera mocquerysi (Brown, 1960), all arboreal species, vegetation was a determining factor for their presence. The occurrence of these species together with Basidentitermes mactus (Sjöstedt, 1911), Strumigenys bernardi (Brown, 1960) and S. sistrura (Bolton, 1983), suggest a more advanced level of restoration of the covered area.

Keywords

• Biodiversity
• Ants
• Termites
• former agricultural land
• habitats restoration