CORRELATIONS BETWEEN SOIL PROPERTIES AND ANT POPULATION IN AGRICULTURAL HABITAT AT AURANGABAD MAHARASHTRA, INDIA

Abstract

Ants have a profound impact on the edaphic factors of the agricultural ecosystem as they increase the soil nutrient and plant growth. Hence in agricultural ecosystem farmers promote ant populations in their farm. Ants help to investigated soil properties included Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium and organic carbon as well as Water holding capacity, pH etc. on agriculture field. The Ants were collected by using handpick, pitfall trap, scented trap methods. The soil properties Some of the environmental variables like rainfall, temperature, and relative humidity were analyzed from June 2015 to May 2016 at an agricultural field at Aurangabad city. The correlation coefficient of ant’s population with soil properties and climatic factors were studied. In that nitrogen, organic carbon, relative humidity, rainy season shows significant positive correlation with all ant species r = 0.507, r = 0.649 at p = 0.05 level, and r = 0.825, r = 0.793 at p = 0.01 level of significant, respectively. The present study revealed that ants had the ability to modify chemical properties of soils and showed the correlation between ant diversity and soil.