The ant fauna of Australia is especially diverse, having 10 subfamilies, 103 genera and about 1,300 described species and subspecies of ants. In comparison with the rest of the world, Australia has 66.7% of the world's subfamilies, 33.3% of the genera and about 15% of the worlds species (Bolton, 1994). While the number of subfamilies and genera in Australia is not expected to increase significantly, it is estimated that only a quarter to half of the total number of Australian ant species have been formally identified by ant taxonomists.
At the generic level the greatest richness of ant fauna is found in warm moist habitats, with up to 76 genera found in Queensland rainforests. The number of genera declines with temperature and rainfall to cool temperate Tasmania with less than 45 genera and some arid areas having less than 25 genera.
At the species level, the distribution pattern is quite different with similar numbers of species between rainforests and arid regions. Rainforests have large numbers of genera but few species within each genus while in arid areas there are large numbers of species within few genera. This contrasts with most other regions of the world, where the highest species richness occurs in tropical rainforests. Locations with the highest number of species are the semi-arid transition zones where the arid zone faunas mix with those of the moister forested zones (Shattuck, 1999).
In Australia, ants can be found in all terrestrial habitats from the highest peaks to the coastal margins, from the wet tropics to the central deserts. They can be found from the footpaths of a city street to the most remote parts of the outback.
Ants can be found living in:
Some ants live in colonies resembling cities with hundreds of thousands of members and 'highways' to favoured feeding sites, while others exist in small colonies with a handful of workers in a twig or between rocks.
Ants are considered to play a major role in the ecological structure of many Australian terrestrial ecosystems. They perform major ecological functions, such as aerating the soil and directing energy and nutrient flows. Ants dominate much of the insect fauna in terrestrial habitats by acting as predators and farming plant feeding insects. The presence or absence of plant species in an area can frequently be determined by ant activity such as harvesting, consuming and burying seeds. They may also act to pollinate some plant species.
Copyright © Australian Museum, 2003
This page: http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/australian_ants.htm
