1. TERMITES DIVERSITY ALONG A GRADIENT OF LAND USE IN A
TROPICAL FOREST MARGIN, OUME, MID-WAST CÔTE D’IVOIRE
Souleymane Konaté 1,*, Tra‐Bi Crauland S. 2, Adja Nahoule Armand 2, Pascal K.T. Angui 1, Jérôme E. Tondoh 1,3, Y. Tano 2
(1) Université d’Abobo‐Adjamé, 02 BP 801 Abidjan 02, Côte d’Ivoire; (2) Université de Cocody, 22 BP 582 Abidjan 22, Côte d’Ivoire
(3) AfSIS Project, CIAT‐TSBF, IER Sotuba, BP 262, Bamako, Mali;
(1) *Correspondence: skonate@uabobo.ci
INTRODUCTION
In tropical areas, climatic changes, human activities and uncontrolled land use exert a strong pressure on the ecosystem, leading to habitat structure modification and a decrease in biodiversity. This modification
This is known to affect considerably animal communities, particularly that of arthropods. Termites, as a conspicuous feature of tropical ecosystems, represent a key component of soil fauna and are considered as
true ecosystem engineers, as well as valuable bio-indicators of tropical biodiversity changes. These organisms play, in many respects, a key role in ecosystems functioning .
The study aims to assess termite diversity, along land use intensification gradient under different agroecosystems in mid-west Côte d’Ivoire .
STUDY AREA AND METHODS
DISTRIBUTION MAP OF STUDY SITES (LAND USE TYPES) RAPID ASSESSMENT OF TERMITE DIVERSITY
Sampling method follows a standardized protocol, along a transect (50m x2m, subdivided into 10 sections of 10 m² each) and a TSBF monolith (25cmx25cmx30cm).
LEGEND
TSBF In each section:
Monolith
50m SS
SS
SS
SS
SS SS
10m SS SS
SS SS
SS SS
5m
2m
Layout of the sampling site : a grid of 4 km² , including different land use types
RESULTS
TERMITE SPECIES RICHNESS CLUSTER ANALYSIS BASED ON TERMITE DIVERSITY
30 SPECIES COMPOSITION
3.5
a
25
This study suggested, as previously, three groups: 3
S ecies rich ess
Indice de Sha nno n
b
20 2.5
n
- First group: fallow, primary forest 2
15 c
CP
T K OO
- Second group: TK00, SF, TK94, RPS 1.5
10
T K 94
- Third group: Annual cropland 1 CP TKOO TK94 J
p
J A CHE RE
5 FSB FSB FP CV RPS
0.5
FP Single Linkage Euclidean distances
CV
0
0
RP S
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 CP 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39
S am pl e s TKOO Samples
Values with same letters (a, b) are not significantly different at p<0.05 level SF
(Kruskal Walis test)
TK94
- The highest number of species was found under fallow fields (27), -With 2.86 and 2.83 Shannon indices, respectively,
RPS
primary forest (25) FALLOW the primary forest and the fallow fields
- Annual crops land, with 16 species, was poorer than all PF
were the most diversified habitats
other habitats AC
- The value corresponding to the most degraded
- Habitats subject to a moderate land use intensification (TK00, 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 habitat (annual crops land) was 2.04.
TK94, RPS,SF and perennial crops) showed intermediate species Linkage Distance
richness
CONCLUSION
(1) Termite diversity decreased with increasing land use intensification in the mid-West Côte d’Ivoire.
The study showed that forests areas could be good niches for biodiversity conservation if land is well managed.
(2) The analysis of functional structure revealed two functional groups of termites, as potential bio-indicators of land use changes.
Fungus growing termites showed a good adaptability to disturbed areas, whereas
humivorous groups, are characteristic of undisturbed habitats (e.g. primary forest and fallow fields).