Preliminary survey of ants at a reserve area of Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla Province, Southern Thailand

Prince of Songkla University is the first university established in the southern part of Thailand. A reserve area is planned at Ko Hong Hill near the university. The flora of this area has been previously explored but a few fauna species have been studied. Although ants are one of dominant groups in this forest, there is no record of their diversity. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine the ant diversity in terms of species composition. Three sampling methods, pitfall trap (PF), hand collecting (HC) and leaf litter sifting (LL) were applied to collection of ants along 3 line transects each of 90 meter in length and 500 meter apart during April 2001. Six subfamilies (Formicinae, Myrmicinae, Dorylinae, Ponerinae, Dolichoderinae and Pseudomyrmecinae) of ants, comprising 44 species, were found. The results also showed that HC was the most sufficient method resulting in the highest number of ant species, while the combination of two methods (HC and LL) yielded the highest number of ant species.