Abstract: Rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) are important economic forest trees in Yunnan province, China. But there are still different viewpoints on ecosystem services of rubber plantations. In order to reveal the differences of leaf-litter ant assemblages between rubber plantations and secondary natural forests, the species diversity, community structure differences and indicator species of ant communities in leaf litter were investigated by Winkler litter extraction in October 2012 and April 2013 in forests of the two types. The results showed that the abundance (transformed), species richness and ACE index of leaf-litter ants in rubber plantations were significantly lower than those in secondary natural forests without disturbance (P<0.05); ant abundance (transformed) in rubber plantations was significantly lower than that in disturbed secondary natural forests (P<0.05), however, the species richness and ACE index had no significant difference between them. There was no significant similarity of ant community composition between rubber plantations and secondary natural forests (F=3.93, df=3, P<0.01). The number of Pheidole species in rubber plantations increased by 100% compared with that in secondary natural forests. There were 3 indicator species (Strumigenys lewisi, Pachycondyla luteipes and Recurvidris nuwa) in leaf litter of secondary natural forests, but only one (Pheidole nodus) in leaf litter of rubber plantations. The ant species diversity in leaf litter had a significant positive correlation with the thickness of leaf litter, but only ant abundance (transformed) had a significant positive correlation with the coverage of leaf litter. The results suggest that after long time management, the rubber plantation ecosystem has the trend to be stabilized, and can protect ant community to some extent, while the ant community composition is very different from that in secondary natural forests.

Key words:  Ants, rubber plantation, secondary natural forest, leaf litter, species diversity, indicator species, community structure, Winkler extraction method