1. DIVERSITY OF TERMITES ALONG A GRADIENT OF LAND USE TYPE
IN A TROPICAL FOREST MARGIN (Oumé - Côte d’Ivoire)
Souleymane Konaté 1,*, Tra‐Bi Crauland S. 2, Adja Nahoule Armand 2, Pascal K.T. Angui 1, Jérôme E. Tondoh 1,3, Y. Tano 2
(1) Université d’Abobo‐Adjamé, 02 BP 801 Abidjan 02, Côte d’Ivoire; (2) Université de Cocody, 22 BP 582 Abidjan 22, Côte d’Ivoire
(3) AfSIS Project, CIAT‐TSBF, IER Sotuba, BP 262, Bamako, Mali;
(1) *Correspondence: skonate@uabobo.ci
INTRODUCTION
In tropical regions, climatic changes, human activities and uncontrolled land use exert a strong pressure on ecosystem leading to a modification of habitat structure and biodiversity decreases. This modification of
habitat structure affects considerably animal community and particularly that of arthropods. Termites, as a conspicuous feature of tropical ecosystems, represent a key component of soil fauna and are considered
to be true ecosystem engineers and valuable bio-indicators for tropical biodiversity changes. Indeed, these organisms intervene at many scale in the functioning of ecosystems.
This study consisted in assessing termite diversity along land use intensification gradient in the centre-western part of Côte d’Ivoire subjected to different agricultural systems.
STUDY AREA AND METHODS
DISTRIBUTION MAP OF STUDY SITES (LAND USE TYPES) RAPID ASSESSMENT OF TERMITE DIVERSITY
The sampling method follows a standardized protocol along a transect:
50m long and 2m wide, subdivided in 10 sections of 10 m².
In each section:
SS
SS
SS
SS
50m SS SS
SS SS
SS SS
SS SS
5m
2m
The sampling area is a grid of 4 Km² including different agricultural
systems (see legend).
RESULTS
TERMITE SPECIES RICHNESS OBSERVED CLUSTER ANALYSIS BASED ON TERMITE DIVERSITY
30 SPECIES COMPOSITION
3.5
a
25
This study suggested, as previously, three groups: 3
S ecies rich ess
Indice de Sha nno n
b
20 2.5
n
- First group: fallow, primary forest 2
15 c
CP
T K OO
- Second group: TK00, SF, TK94, RPS 1.5
10
T K 94
- Third group: Annual crops land 1 CP TKOO TK94 J
p
J A CHE RE
5 FSB FSB FP CV RPS
0.5
FP Single Linkage Euclidean distances
CV
0
0
RP S
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 CP 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39
S am pl e s TKOO Samples
Values with same letters (a, b) are not significantly different at p<0,05 level SF
(Kruskal Walis test)
TK94
- The highest number of species appeared in fallow (27), - With respectively 2,86 and 2,83 as Shannon
RPS
primary forest (25) FALLOW index values, the primary forest and the fallow
- Annual crops land with 16 species, was poorer than all PF
were the most diversified habitats.
other habitats. AC
- The value corresponding to the most degraded
- Habitats subjected to a moderate land use intensification (TK00, 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 habitat (annual crops land) is 2,04.
TK94, RPS,SF and perennial crops) showed intermediate species Linkage Distance
richness.
CONCLUSION
(1) Termite diversity decreased with increasing land use intensification in the centre-western region of Côte d’Ivoire.
The study suggested that rural forests could be good places for biodiversity conservation if the land use process is well managed.
(2) The analysis of functional structure indicated two functional groups of termite as potential bio-indicators of land use changes.
Fungus growing termites showed a good adaptability to disturbed areas whereas
humivorous group is characteristic of undisturbed habitats (e.g. primary forest and fallow).