Abstract

SANABRIA-BLANDON, María Catalina  and  CHACON DE ULLOA, Patricia. Ants as potential pest of butterflies in three rearing in the southwest of Colombia. Acta Agron. [online]. 2009, vol.58, n.1, pp.47-52. ISSN 0120-2812.

The ant fauna associated to the butterflies rearing in the departments of Cauca Valley and Quindio (Colombia) was studied. The ants were collected using manual capture method in three different environments (butterfly garden, nursery and laboratory). 779 ants were extracted from 125 samples, which belonged to five sub-families, 18 genera and 24 species. The greatest number of species were registered at the laboratory (17), followed by nursery (16) and butterfly garden (13). There weren't any significant differences (Chi2 = 6.019, d.f.= 10, P> 0.75), in assessing the preference of ants for some environment, however some trends were observed, on this way: at the lab Wasmannia auropunctata (50%), Linepithema sp. (47%), Monomorium floricola (40%) were the most important species, while at the butterfly garden were Linepithema humile (42%), Camponotus novogranadensis (39%) and Paratrechina longiconis (37.5%) and W. auropunctata (37.5%) and P. longicornis (37.5%) at the nursery. Some of these ants have been recognized as tramp ants and urban pests, which could be considerate as a potential risk for butterfly rearing activities. In this research, we expected recognize the ants species associated in three butterflies rearing located in the southwest of Colombia.

Keywords : Tramp ants; Camponotus novogranadensis; Linepithema spp; Monomorium floricola; Paratrechina longicornis; Wasmannia auropunctata.

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