Ants show the way Down-Under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management

he sight of land managers poring over ant checklists is a regular occurrence in Australia, where ant monitoring has been successfully applied to a wide range of land-use situations. The robustness of ants as ecological indicators has been consistently demonstrated, and is supported by an extensive u...

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Main Authors: Majer, Jonathan, Andersen, A. N.
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2004
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/42723
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author Majer, Jonathan
Andersen, A. N.
author_facet Majer, Jonathan
Andersen, A. N.
author_sort Majer, Jonathan
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description he sight of land managers poring over ant checklists is a regular occurrence in Australia, where ant monitoring has been successfully applied to a wide range of land-use situations. The robustness of ants as ecological indicators has been consistently demonstrated, and is supported by an extensive understanding of their community dynamics in relation to disturbance. Despite the widespread recognition of the value of terrestrial invertebrates as bioindicators, the use of ants represents one of the few examples where invertebrates are widely adopted in land management as indicator organisms, as opposed to being consigned to the “too hard” basket. The use of invertebrates as bioindicators in land management will always require specialist expertise and a substantial investment in resources. However, research in Australia shows that invertebrate monitoring does not require comprehensive surveys, and that it is possible to simplify sampling and processing without compromising indicator performance.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-427232017-09-13T15:59:13Z Ants show the way Down-Under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management Majer, Jonathan Andersen, A. N. he sight of land managers poring over ant checklists is a regular occurrence in Australia, where ant monitoring has been successfully applied to a wide range of land-use situations. The robustness of ants as ecological indicators has been consistently demonstrated, and is supported by an extensive understanding of their community dynamics in relation to disturbance. Despite the widespread recognition of the value of terrestrial invertebrates as bioindicators, the use of ants represents one of the few examples where invertebrates are widely adopted in land management as indicator organisms, as opposed to being consigned to the “too hard” basket. The use of invertebrates as bioindicators in land management will always require specialist expertise and a substantial investment in resources. However, research in Australia shows that invertebrate monitoring does not require comprehensive surveys, and that it is possible to simplify sampling and processing without compromising indicator performance. 2004 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/42723 10.1890/1540-9295(2004)002[0292:ASTWDU]2.0.CO;2 restricted
spellingShingle Majer, Jonathan
Andersen, A. N.
Ants show the way Down-Under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management
title Ants show the way Down-Under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management
title_full Ants show the way Down-Under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management
title_fullStr Ants show the way Down-Under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management
title_full_unstemmed Ants show the way Down-Under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management
title_short Ants show the way Down-Under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management
title_sort ants show the way down-under: invertebrates as bioindicators in land management
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/42723