Spatial Statistics and Age Structure of Leaf Cutting Ant Nests
2019
In this study, we investigated the spatial aggregation of old and
incipient nests of Atta
sexdens rubropilosa by fitting Poisson and Negative binomial models to
nest abundance data. Our aim is to analyse the distribution of ant nests in
eucalypt regrowth, Cerrado and native forest fragment. We also investigated the
correlation between nest abundance and climatic factors, as well as different
nest ages. When comparing nests of different ages we observed an aggregated
pattern for both old and incipient nests. On the other hand, analysing the
distribution of nests separately, only taking into account the different areas
and respective borders, old nests exhibited an aggregated pattern and incipient
nests showed a random pattern, except for native forest with ants exhibiting
only an aggregated pattern. The levels of aggregation changed in response to
different areas and border gradients, with more external borders showing higher
aggregation than more internal borders. Temperature was the variable showing
the highest correlation with nest abundance and the correlation between nests
of different ages was totally depending on the different areas.
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