Developing a European-level Monitoring strategy for mound-building Formica Ants and symbiont communities residing in nest mounds
Call
Duration
01/01/2024 – 31/03/2027
Total grant
Approx. 1,5 mil. €
More information
Heike FELDHAAR
feldhaar@uni-bayreuth.de
Partners of the project
- Animal Ecology I, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of York, York, UK
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
- Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research, Bolzano / Bozen, Bolzano / Bozen, Italy
- Institute of Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic
- Hungarian Department of Biology and Ecology, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
- Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Helsinki, Finland
- Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium
- Terrestrial Ecology Unit, Univeristy of Gent, Gent, Belgium
Context
Mound-building Formica ant species (MBF) are considered keystone species in temperate and boreal forests of Eurasia. Due to their large colony size and long- lasting nests, they impact the functioning of forest ecosystems in many ways and across several trophic levels. Nest mounds of MBF are cohabited by many different arthropod species, and other invertebrates, so-called myrmecophiles. Thus, a change in abundance and distribution of MBF will have repercussions on ecosystem processes and on diverse taxa depending on them.
Forest management, deforestation, and fragmentation of forests have been shown to negatively impact MBF, resulting in their protection within EU countries and their inclusion in the IUCN red list. Data on population trends are nonetheless sparse due to the lack of an established and widely used monitoring scheme at national or EU level. In addition, we know hardly anything about geographic patterns of the occurrence of myrmecophiles within nest mounds, especially along climatic or altitudinal gradients. Due to their conspicuous nest mounds and their cultural embeddedness, Formica ants are ideal to engage the public in citizen science projects.
Main objectives
The aims of this project are to
- compare existing monitoring strategies for MBF at the European level and use expert knowledge to develop and validate a harmonised monitoring strategy for policy makers and a recommendation for citizen science projects to facilitate monitoring of distribution and population trends of MBF;
- characterise the diversity of myrmecophiles within nests along climatic, altitudinal, and fragmentation gradients to assess the importance of MBF as umbrella species using metabarcoding;
- monitor genetic diversity of MBF along climatic and forest fragmentation gradients and establish thresholds for reproduction of MBF in managed forests to identify requirements for stable populations;
- develop recommendations for conservation, based on a synthesis of the results and deliver a cost-effective and efficient common monitoring scheme based on open science principles to enable a Europe-wide comparison of the threat status, distribution and population trends of MBF and associated species.
Main activities
We will provide best practice guidelines for a citizen-science approach and test a semi-automated monitoring approach based on remote sensing using drones or hand-held devices that will facilitate the assessment of population trends of mound-building Formica ants (MBF) across Europe. For the first time we will characterise myrmecophile diversity of MBF nests along the large climatic, altitudinal, and forest fragmentation gradients covered by the participating partner countries. Genetic diversity within colonies and thresholds for reproduction and survival will be established by assessing presence/absence of colonies, size of nest mounds, and presence of pathogens along these gradients, which will allow us to provide recommendations to foresters for the conservation of MBF. Communication of results to different stakeholders and to the general public to facilitate conservation of MBF will be through talks, brochures, and videos in different languages.