Abstract
Hainan Province is a tropical island identified as a global biodiversity hotspot, but limited sampling and taxonomic efforts have been conducted to catalog and describe its ant fauna. Here, we compiled valid historical records and new records based on past and recent ant surveys, to present the first checklist of ants specific to Hainan. In total, we identified 10 subfamilies, 67 genera, and 237 species, a 60% increase in the previous species checklist. A total 25 genera and 89 nominal species are newly recorded for the island, and 109 morphospecies are detected. The checklist also includes 15 exotic species, among which Pheidole megacephala (Fabricius, 1793) and Solenopsis invicta Buren, 1972 can be considered as invasive. Despite this update, we provide several lines of evidence to argue that the Hainan ant fauna remains largely understudied. Together, these findings not only highlight the rich biodiversity present but also the importance of increasing the species cataloguing rate and taxonomic work for the island. The use of additional sampling approaches, and new surveys targeting a wider geographic and ecological span might represent an efficient approach to fill this knowledge gap.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e018006 |
| Number of pages | 123 |
| Journal | Asian Myrmecology |
| Volume | 18 |
| Early online date | 1 Jul 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2025 |
Bibliographical note
The authors would like to thank Bing-Lan Zhang, Ho-Ran Choi at the SYSBM for facilitating our visit in November 2024. We thank Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden for providing financial and logistic support of field surveys, and Hainan Forestry Bureau for permission and accompaniment during the earlier surveys (1998-1999). We thank Peng Wang, Xiao-Qin Liu, Joanne Li, Jun Li and Hil Padilla for assisting in the field work, as well as Fay Mok, Kitty Wong, Sandra Leung, Jelena GrosseBley, and Colin Chiu for laboratory assistance.Funding
Funding was in part provided by the Environment and Conservation Fund from the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, under the ‘Environmental Research, Technology Demonstration and Conference Projects’ funding scheme – Project number ECF 137/2020. WLW acknowledges the support of the Summer Research Fellowship from the Faculty of Science at The University of Hong Kong. The authors were also supported by the Hong Kong University Grants Committee (GRF project 17103223).
Keywords
- Asia
- Biodiversity
- Insects
- Inventory
- Invasive Species
- Solenopsis invicta