Changes of species diversity of ants over time: A case study in two urban parks

To compare the changes of ant faunas in urban parks over time, we surveyed two parks in Fukuoka City, Japan: Momochi Chuou Kouen (MC) and Minami Kouen (MK), both of which were studied in 1998. The survey was conducted in 2012 using 30-min. time unit sampling with 8 replicates. This sampling method is exactly the same as the one executed in 1998. In MC, 17 species were collected and estimated species number was 18.75+1.75 by Jack-Knife method. Compared with the data of 1998, the collected species number and estimated species number were almost same (17 spp. with 18.75±1.15 spp. in 1998). Changes of species composition could not be detected over time. On the other hand, the result of MK showed 23 collected species (20 spp. in 1998) with 28.25±2.56 estimated species (24.38+2.63 spp. in 1998). In MK, number of species and change of species composition cannot be commented, because the sampled species numbers were too low for comparing with the estimated species number.