03078naa a2200145 a 450000100080000000500110000800800410001910000200006024501190008026000090019952023660020870000200257470000170259477303210261113150032008-10-02       2008    bl uuuu     u00u1 u    #d1 aSOUZA, J. L. P.  aEvaluation of the amostral effort in sampling ants from the litter of an Amazonia Oriental forest reserve, Brazil.  c2008  aThe number of samples to collect in the field and sorting reduction in the laboratory are important issues for processing ants collected during long-term study. We have conducted a pilot investigation to evaluate the reduction in costs and time in mounting, labeling, and identifying ant, and to elaborate cost-effective protocols. We used samples collected for a single period in 24 transects of 100 m distributed in six 600 ha plots spread over 33,000 ha of primary forest in the Brazilian State of Pará, Brazil, as part of a long-term project planned to execute four sampling periods a year during 10 years (Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring Initiative, TEAM, Ants Methodology Protocol). Ten samples were taken per transect using the extractor of Winkler. Ants were identified to genus and Crematogaster, Gnamptogenys and Pachycondyla genera to species level. Field-effort reduction was estimated by diminishing the number of samples per transect. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was used to generate dissimilarity matrixes and then Mantel correlations between each reduced-sampling effort dissimilarity matrix and the maximum effort were used as an index of how much information was maintained, and could still be used in multivariate analyses. We registered 44 genera of ants. Considering the genera identified to species level, we found 19 species and 6 morphospecies; 3 taxa are considered new, 5 are new records for the state of Pará, and 11 for the study site. We found that the composition of the communities in the inventory could be represented in lower number of samples per transect, but in different levels of reduction for each taxonomical grouping. Considering the environmental variables (sand percentage, litter volume, and soil pH) and the maximum effort, a consistent trend of lower values was detected in capturing the effect of litter volume for the community of Crematogaster, and soil pH for the community of genera. The trend was still detectable in the subsequent analysis based on reduced-sampling. These results indicate that the initial protocol of the long-term project can be optimized to increase field and laboratory cost-efficiency. Other experiments are needed encompassing replicates of several sampling periods to ensure if the observed tendencies can be reproduced. Financial Support: TEAM, FAPEAM, FADESP, CNPq.1 aMOURA, C. A. R.1 aFRANKLIN, E.  tIn: INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON SOIL ZOOLOGY, 15; INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON APTERYGOTA, 12., 2008, Curitiba. Biodiversity, conservation and sustainabele management of soil animal: abstracts. Colombo: Embrapa Florestas. Editors: George Gardner Brown; Klaus Dieter Sautter; Renato Marques; Amarildo Pasini. 1 CD-ROM.