We studied the abundance, richness and composition of hunting ants and their variation in production systems in department of Caquetá-Colombia, 27 farms were selected in three productive systems (agroforestry, silvopastoral and traditional), in this nine kinds of soil uses were identified. The proportions of clean pasture, agroforestry and old stubble contributed most to differentiating the systems. Five points were sampled per farm using four different methods for sampling ants (TSBF, formalin soil washing, screening of litter and direct search). A total of 280 organisms was collected, corresponding to nine genera and 35 species, belonging to the subfamilies Ectatomminae, Paraponerinae and Ponerinae. Pachycondyla was the most diverse genus (13 species). The abundance of ants was directly correlated with species richness and the number of exclusive species. The highest richness was observed in the agroforestry (24 species), followed by silvopastoral (19) and the lowest in traditional (8). Five species were common in the three systems and seven species marked the most differences in composition between systems (this was: Ectatomma ruidum, Hypoponera sp.1 and sp.4, Odontomachus haematodus, O. brunneus and Pachycondyla constricta). The species Odontomachus brunneus was indicator for the traditional system and Paraponera clavata was in silvopastoral system. Direct search was the most efficient method to sample ants in the Colombian Amazon foothills.
agroforestry; silvopastoral; tradicional cattle pasture; ant samples; Odontomachus brunneus; Paraponera clavata; Caquetá
