Check List 18(6): 1347-1368, doi: 10.15560/18.6.1347
Survey of ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in the city of Providence (Rhode Island, United States) and a new northern-most record for Brachyponera chinensis (Emery, 1895)
James S. Waters‡, Nicole W. Keough§, Joseph Burt‡, Jonathan D. Eckel‡, Trey Hutchinson‡, Jonathan Ewanchuk‡, Matthew Rock‡, Jeffrey A. Markert‡, Heather J. Axen|, David Gregg¶‡ Providence College, Providence, United States of America§ University of California Davis, Davis, United States of America| Salve Regina University, Newport, United States of America¶ Rhode Island Natural History Survey, North Kingston, United States of America
Corresponding author: James S. Waters ( jwaters2@providence.edu ) Academic editor: Lívia Pires do Prado © James S. Waters, Nicole W. Keough, Joseph Burt, Jonathan D. Eckel, Trey Hutchinson, Jonathan Ewanchuk, Matthew Rock, Jeffrey A. Markert, Heather J. Axen, David Gregg. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Waters JS, Keough NW, Burt J, Eckel JD, Hutchinson T, Ewanchuk J, Rock M, Markert JA, Axen HJ, Gregg D (2022) Survey of ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in the city of Providence (Rhode Island, United States) and a new northern-most record for Brachyponera chinensis (Emery, 1895). Check List 18(6): 1347-1368. https://doi.org/10.15560/18.6.1347 |  |
Abstract
We surveyed ants in Providence, Rhode Island, from 2015 to 2019. Methods including repeated pitfall trap sampling and manual searching were used to collect ants at Providence College and a rapid biological assess-ment was conducted at Roger Williams Park. A total of 36 species were identified based on morphology, including the first observations of a colony of Needle Ants (Brachyponera chinensis Emery, 1895) in New England. Twenty-six species identified were new county records and seven species were new state records, representing a substantial update to the list of known ant species in Rhode Island, currently totaling 41 species in Providence and 69 spe-cies from six subfamilies across the state. These results are comparable with similarly scaled surveys conducted at parks and cities across the world, and they also offer a reminder that while urbanization can be associated with reductions in habitat availability for some fauna, cities can be accessible and ecologically important locations for exploring myrmecological biodiversity.
Keywords
BioBlitz, biodiversity, cities, Needle Ants, survey, urban ecology