Journal article
Influence of native ants on arthropod communities in a vineyard
CS Chong, CF D'Alberto, LJ Thomson, AA Hoffmann
Agricultural and Forest Entomology | WILEY | Published : 2010
Abstract
Ants can have a range of effects on arthropods in crops, including suppressing herbivores such as caterpillars. However, ants can also increase hemipteran densities while reducing natural enemy numbers. In vineyard ecosystem, the effects of native ants and their interactions with other arthropods are poorly understood. An ant-exclusion experiment was designed to test the impact of native ants on both canopy and ground arthropods concurrently. The potential influence of ants on predation and parasitism of light brown apple moth (LBAM) eggs, a grape pest, was also examined. Adult grapevine scale insects and earwigs under bark were counted after a season of ant-exclusion. Among 23 ground ant sp..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Sophie Amann, Wei-Han Lim, Leonor Ceballos Meraz, Norberto Nieto Vazquez, Michael Nash, John Roberts, David Sharley and Angelos Tsitsilas for their assistance in the field. Specimen verifications were generously provided by Alan Andersen (CSIRO), Simon Hinkley (Melbourne Museum) and Steve Shattuck (CSIRO) for ants; Adrian Rakimov (CESAR) for scale insects; and Michael Nash (CESAR) and David Sharley (CESAR) for beetles. We thank Stuart Proud and Robert Sutherland of De Bortoli Wines for access to their vineyard. Five anonymous reviewers provided useful comments that improved this manuscript. This research was supported by a grant from Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment and a grant from the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation.