Coimbatore: The ongoing All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) at the Singanallur Lake has landed on ant species, leading experts and volunteers to find eight species of ants there.
Coimbatore: The ongoing All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) at the Singanallur Lake has landed on ant species, leading experts and volunteers to find eight species of ants there.
During the last four survey days (Weekends), the volunteers have been able to identify eight species of ants belonging to three sub-families. They have also spotted ten other unknown species and are in the process of identifying them.
The ants include the Odour Ant, Common Godzilla Ant, Weaver Ant, Black Crazy Ant, Common Red Fire Ant, Spineless Harvester Ant. Common Broad Acrobat Ant and Sluggy Wooly Ant.
As many as 15 persons were involved so far in ant survey that would continue on all weekends for three months.
Paul Pop, Researcher at the Centre for Urban Biodiversity Conservation and Education (CUBE) that leads the survey said that assessing the diversity of ants in the lake would give a good indication of the lake environment's health.
“Ants are good ecological indicators of many ecosystems. They are organisms with a huge impact on soil fertility. Even in places where earthworms cannot survive, the ants aerate the soil by building their burrows, as well as transporting various minerals from place to place,” he said.
Adding that ants are an integral part of food webs, he informed that if the health and composition of ant colonies are known, the condition of associated species could also be ascertained. “Ants are very sensitive to environmental changes and the data collected through the survey would help assess the health of the ecosystem. It could also help device conservation actions,” Paul Pop said.
The team initially tries to identify the species on sight and also take down notes using the morpho species method (ascribing species status to morphological distinct types of ants and taking photographs and descriptions for later identification) for unknown species.
“There are around 12,000 species of ants in the world and India hosts 828 of them. But identifying is not an easy task. We check for various traits such as body shape, colour of each body segment, presence of eyes, number of segments on the upper portion of the antenna, presence of sting, presence of hair in the 'gaster' (abdominal region),” he informed.
The data would be added to ATBI and act as baseline information for further in-depth ecological studies. Notably, the lake hosts more than 720 species of animals and plants, of which 453 are plants alone.
Those who wish to participate, can contact +91 99433 25271.