Parasitoid phorid flies of the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex niger are negatively affected by the reduction in forest cover

BARRERA, CORINA; BECKER, EL; SAMPAIO, RC; OLIVEIRA MV; ELIZALDE LUCIANA; QUEIROZ, JARBAS M

Ilhéus

Simposio; XXII Simpósio de Mirmecologia; 2015

Leaf-cutting ants play a major role in ecosystems and are considered the dominant herbivores of the Neotropic. An important natural enemy of leaf-cutting ants are parasitoid flies in the Family Phoridae. These parasitoids attack the adult workers while they are outside of the nest in order to deposit their eggs inside the body of the ant. Interactions between parasitoids and leaf-cutting ants in a fragmented region of the Atlantic Forest comprises a promising model system to investigate the impacts of habitat fragmentation upon host-parasitoid interactions, given that parasitoids in general are heavily affected by these alterations. The goal of this work was to study the effects of the reduction in forest cover, one of the most important negative impacts of fragmentation, upon phorid parasitoids of the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex niger Smith in a region of the Atlantic Forest in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Ten forest remnants of different sizes were sampled (five large >80ha and five small