Carval, Dominique

Ant community in tropical agroecosystem 

 

Ant communities in tropical agroecosystems

When you are working on tropical agroecosystems, you are rapidly facing a particluar and very interesting group of arthropods, the ants.

Ants are preponderant in tropical agroecosystems and their influence on the functionning of arthropod communities cannot be ignored. By their ubiquity and abundance, ants represent an important group of potential agents of biological control.

I conduct field studies in Martinique, Costa Rica and Cameroun to assess such potential in a context of ecological diversification of agroecosystems.

Ants in Martinique

I started to interest in antsby working in banana fields in Martinique. Here is a list of ant species that are encountered in Martinique agroecosystems. With 46 identified species, this list is very likely incomplete and should be regularly updated. Please contact me if you have specimens of ants of Martinique.

Ants in Africa

I work with Anicet Dassou from BIORAVE UNSTIM (Bénin) on the ant communities in agroecosystems of Cameroon and Benin. We are particularly intersested in the relationship between the vegetation structure and divesity in agrosystems, the ant communities and the pest regulation.

Ants in Costa Rica

I worked with Charlotte Poeydebat on the effect of the plant diversity on banana weevil regulation. In this work, we look at the response of arthropod foodweb to the variation in plant richness, with an emphasis on omnivorous and predaceous ants.

 

Gnamptogenys striatula

 

I actually work with Sacha Roudine, Leïla Bagny-Beihle and Paul Tresson on prey sentinel experminents in agroforestry systems. We use time-lapse photography to detect events of predation.

 

 Predation of Metamasius larvae by Odontomachus bauri and Pheidole radoszkowskii.