Seasonality is known to influence ant activity in many tropical rain forests in the world such as South America and Africa. We surveyed ant fauna in the leaf litter in the locality of Minko'o. The work aimed to evaluate the effect of seasonal variation on the diversity and composition of litter ants. Ants were sampled from November 2015 to June 2017, using four sampling methods: visual capture, bait, pitfall trap and extraction. Species richness, Shannon diversity index and analysis of similarities were used to characterise diversity of ant communities between seasons. We collected 306 ant species, shared out between 56 genera and 11 subfamilies. Subfamilies Myrmicinae, Ponerinae, Dolichoderinae, Formicinae, Dorylinae, Cerapachyinae and Pseudomyrmecinae occurred in all the seasons. Species richness was highest in major dry season with 243 species followed by minor rainy season with 188, major rainy season with 177 species and finally minor dry season that recorded the lowest with 155 species. Kruskal–Wallis test showed that ant species richness did not differ between seasons (p > 0.05). Species diversity index indicated that diversity was the highest during minor dry season (H′ = 4.24), followed by the major dry season (H′ = 4.23), minor rainy season (H′ = 4.21) and lowest during major rainy season (H′ = 4.06). Eight most frequents ants have been recorded: Axinidris sp.1, Camponotus flavomarginatus, Monomorium guineense, Myrmicaria opaciventris, Odontomachus troglodytes, Carebara perpusilla, Paltothyreus tarsatus and Pheidole megacephala. Assessment of the seasonal effect on diversity reveals that dry season is richer and more diverse than rainy season and the season significantly influence the diversity of litter ants.

中文翻译：

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季节对Minko'o（喀麦隆南部）地区的凋落物蚂蚁（膜翅目：蚁科）多样性的影响

众所周知，季节性会影响世界上许多热带雨林（如南美和非洲）的蚂蚁活动。我们在Minko'o地区调查了落叶中的蚂蚁动物区系。该工作旨在评估季节性变化对凋落蚂蚁多样性和组成的影响。从2015年11月至2017年6月，使用四种采样方法对蚂蚁进行采样：视觉捕获，诱饵，陷阱陷阱和提取。利用物种丰富度，香农多样性指数和相似度分析来表征季节之间蚂蚁群落的多样性。我们收集了306种蚂蚁，在56个属和11个亚科之间共有。在所有季节中都发生了桃金娘科，假单胞菌，多毛虫科，甲虫科，多丽菌科，鹿角菜科和假单胞菌亚科。物种丰富度在主要干旱季节最高，为243种，其次是少雨季节，为188种，主要雨季为177种，最后是次要干旱季节，最低记录为155种。Kruskal–Wallis检验表明，不同季节之间蚂蚁的物种丰富度没有差异（p  > 0.05）。物种多样性指数表明，次旱季多样性最高（H'= 4.24），其次是主要旱季（H'= 4.23），次雨季（H'= 4.21），而在主要雨季最低（H '= 4.06）。八周最流连的蚂蚁已被记录：Axinidris SP.1，弓背flavomarginatus，小家guineense，Myrmicaria opaciventris，锯针蚁穴居人，Carebara perpusilla，Paltothyreus tarsatus和褐大头蚁。对季节对多样性的影响的评估表明，旱季比雨季更丰富，种类也更多，而且该季节显着影响凋落物蚂蚁的多样性。