An elevational gradient in litter-dwelling ant communities in Imbak Canyon, Sabah, Malaysia

The predicted effect of climate change across a range of taxa is currently a hotly debated topic. There is a pressing need to learn more about how animals and plants respond to climatic change in their surrounding habitats. A commonly used approach is to link changes in the taxon of interest to elevational gradients, where communities under a range of climatic conditions can be sampled in a small area. We conducted an elevational study of ant communities in the lmbak Canyon Conservation Area. The objective of the study was to investigate changes in ant species richness, abundance and composition along an elevational gradient from 300 m to 1,100 m a.s.l. with sampling points spaced at 100 m elevational intervals. We also measured litter depth to assess whether this factor affected ant communities within each elevational band. Over a total of 1,296 trap-hours, we collected 1,002 individual ants from 41 genera and 116 species. Ant species richness decreased with increasing elevation, as has been found for other invertebrates. However, there were no changes in ant abundance or species composttton along the elevational gradient. Our results indicate that the ant communities within this area may be relatively robust to increasing temperatures. Further studies in similar habitats and environments should be carried out in order to reveal the consistency of these results across the region and to investigate changes in ant contribution to ecosystem functions at different elevations.