Ants from the Natural Park of the Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac

Abstract

Despite the interest in wildlife studies in natural parks, we detected a lack of knowledge of the myrmecological fauna of the Natural Park of Sant Llorenç del Munt i lObac, as only a sampling had been done by Cerdà et al. (1989) in a specific area of the Collada de tres Creus in the Serra de lObac, in which 24 species of ants were determined. In order to get a more real picture of the myrmecological richness of this park, three different samples A, B and C were taken. A: an epiedaphic fauna study in 2006; B: post-fire study of a burned area in 2003 (also carried out in 2007) and C: a biannual one in 2006-2007 that were used to develop a doctoral thesis (Herraiz, 2010). In the A and B samples, 8 cm diameter pitfall traps active for 14 days were used. For the C study, 7 cm diameter pitfalls active for 7 days were utilized, active for 7 days, as well as the sight hunting of specimens observed in each of the 68 areas for one hour. A total of 33,625 ants were determined, belonging to 65 species (22 in Cerdàs study) of 23 genera. From the 185 species of ants that have been found in Catalonia, those 65 species, plus Tapinoma erraticum (Latreille, 1798) and Myrmica sabuleti Meinert, 1861 collected by Cerdà and four additional species collected in recent studies, represent more than a third (38.4 %) of the myrmecological fauna from Catalonia, being one of the parks with the greatest myrmecological diversity in Catalonia after the Aiguamolls de lEmpordà Natural Park (Herraiz & Espadaler, 2020).