Pine plantations in south eastern Australia support highly impoverished ant assemblages (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Pitfall trap surveys of ants were undertaken in mature and intermediate-aged Pinus radiata plantations and parental eucalypt forest in central Victoria, Australia. Ant assemblages of pine plantations are an impoverished subset of the eucalypt forest assemblages. Very few ant morphospecies, most of them in very low abundance, were found in unthinned intermediate-aged pines, and the numbers were substantially higher in older, thinned pines in which understorey vegetation is considerably more developed. Implications for plantation management and conservation of epigaeic ant assemblages are discussed.