10.5061/DRYAD.1G1JWSV00
Quansah, Gabriel
0000-0002-1917-7311
CSIR-Soil Research Institute*
Quansah, Gabriel
0000-0002-1917-7311
CSIR-Soil Research Institute
Adu-Bredu, Stephen
CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana
Logah, Vincent
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
Malhi, Yadvinder
University of Oxford
Eggleton, Paul
The Natural History Museum
Parr, Catherine
University of Liverpool
Termite diversity is resilient to land-use change
Dryad
dataset
2022
cocoa-agroforestry
feeding groups
forest reserve
shade trees
FOS: Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
Royal Society-DFID*
AQ150060
2022-05-18T00:00:00Z
2022-05-18T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6562108
24056 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Cocoa is an important crop for Ghana’s economy, contributing 25% of Gross
Domestic Product (GDP). The crop, however, is mainly cultivated on
forest-derived soils and is a major cause of land-use change. Termites are
an important biological component of tropical ecosystems providing
numerous ecosystem services. Previous studies have indicated that termites
are sensitive to forest disturbance and decrease in richness and abundance
across land-use intensification gradients, with consequences for the
essential services that they provide. Native shade trees are often used to
improve cocoa cultivation and may reduce the detrimental effects of
land-use change on some aspects of biodiversity. The aim of this study was
therefore to explore how termites respond to land-use change along a
shade-tree gradient in Kakum National Park and surrounding cocoa farms in
Ghana (from forest at 80% tree cover to cocoa with no shade cover, to the
extreme of cultivated arable crop land). It was predicted that termite
richness and abundance would decrease with decreasing shade cover, and
with increasing distance from the forest edge. Thirty-four species from 29
genera were sampled, with Ancistrotermes crucifer being found in all the
locations (47% of all encounters). Species richness and abundance differed
marginally across the land-use gradient, as well as the distance from the
forest edge, however, species richness did not show any significance with
distance. All the same, termite communities were robust to the
disturbance. Our findings suggest that though site influenced species
richness and abundance, cocoa trees can play a crucial role in maintaining
biodiversity and environmental quality in an agricultural landscape by
providing a habitat for forest species that are not found in pastures or
farm fields. However, we caution that the relatively low forest baseline
of existing forest diversity may inflate the value of cocoa land, with
those forests no longer representing undisturbed natural habitats: this
highlights that shifting baselines may need to be accounted for when
interpreting findings in the Anthropocene.
Termites were sampled along a single belt transect at each site using the
standardized transect method as described by Jones and Eggleton (2000).
Transects were 100 m long and 2 m wide, divided into 20 sections of 5 x 2
m each. Transects were geo-referenced, with GPS coordinates taken at the
beginning and the end of each transect. One person-hour of sampling effort
per section was used to search for and collect termites from the soil (12
pits of approximately 12 cm x 12 cm x 10 cm (depth) were dug per section),
accumulations of litter and humus at the base of trees, the inside of dead
wood, tree stumps, soil within and beneath very rotten logs, subterranean
nests, mounds, runways on vegetation and arboreal nests up to a height of
2 m above ground level. Termites were searched for within each transect
section, and samples were collected for each encounter and placed in
separate vials. When possible, termite samples for each encounter
consisted of two to three soldiers and five to seven workers: in total,
seven to ten individuals. Termites were placed in vials filled with 70 @
ethanol and labelled according to the section of the transect they were
collected.
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