Urban tropical forest islets as hotspots of ants in general and invasive ants in particular.

Urbanization is a crucial driver of environmental and biodiversity change. It is suggested that urbanization favours generalist and invasive species and might harm specialists of natural and semi-natural habitats. In this study, we examined how an urbanization gradient and environmental gradients in the habitat area, habitat diversity, elevation, and proportion of built-up area influenced the abundance and richness of ants within tropical forest islet habitat in south India.

Diversity of Platygastridae in Leaf Litter and Understory Layers of Tropical Rainforests of the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, India.

Platygastridae is the third largest family of parasitic Hymenoptera in the world. It includes important egg and larval parasitoids of insects and spiders. Therefore, Platygastridae is functionally important in maintaining the stability of tropical rainforests and agroecosystems.