Ant assemblages associated with lowland forests in the southern part of the great Hungarian plain

A survey of ants in 11 native forests and 13 plantations of introduced tree s resulted in an inventory of altogether 36 species. The number of species was the highest in the native poplar forests (total: 24, mean: 13.33 +/- 4. 16), and the lowest in the hybrid poplar plantation (13 and 6.33 +/- 1.15, respectively). Ants were numerically most abundant in native poplar and oak forests and least in black locust habitats. The typical forest ant species could be found in the forests native in the region (poplar, oak) or in the Carpathian basin (pine), whereas the fauna of the introduced forests (hybr id poplar, black locust, Russian olive) consisted of the fraction of either degraded forest or grassland ant communities. The fauna of the open junipe r forests also consisted of both forest and grassland species, but more cha racteristic for natural sites. Neither close correlation between the region al distribution and the local density, nor definite bimodal trend in the re gional distribution was observed. There was, however, a close correlation b etween the information content of distribution and the local densities of t he ant species.