The effect of forest age and habitat structure on the ground-dwelling ant assemblages of lowland poplar plantations

摘要

1 Intensive management causes significant changes to the habitat structure of forest stands and threatens forest specialist insect species. To assess and counteract the effect of periodic intensive forestry interventions, such as clear-cutting and reforestation, it is important to adequately quantify the recovery rate and composition of the native biota. We aimed to characterize the above parameters for ant assemblages in forests with different structure and age.