An Overview on Ants as Bioindicator

There is a resurgence to measure or monitor the impact of intensive exploitation of natural resources on environment and original habitats. The indicator qualities of terrestrial invertebrates are widely recognized in the context of detecting ecological change associated with human land-use. However, the use of terrestrial invertebrates as bioindicators remains more a topic of scientific discourse than a part of land-management practice, largely because their inordinate numbers, taxonomic challenges and general unfamiliarity make invertebrates too intimidating for most land-management agencies. Terrestrial invertebrates will not be widely adopted as bioindicators in land management until simple and efficient protocols have been developed that meet the needs of land managers. There are several characteristics that an indicator species must have, the most notable being ease of measurement, sensitivity to environmental stress, and predictable responses to environmental stress. Ants are increasingly being recognized as useful tools as bioindicators for land managers to monitor ecosystem health conditions. This group has useful characteristics for successful indication and monitoring of environmental impacts, including widespread distribution, high abundance, importance in ecosystem functioning, ease of sampling, and latively well-known taxonomy and ecology. With this back ground, we aimed to conduct review of literature study with the main purpose to describe and delineate on current perspectives on use of ants as bioindicators.