![]() This diversity makes inter-study comparisons potentially challenging, especially because a very long time is often necessary to obtain a complete extraction of the ant fauna ( Krell et al. Supplementary details are provided in the Appendix). protocol lasts 48 hours, but a survey of the literature shows that a large variety of extraction durations have been used, often without a justification (the extraction time ranged from 0 to 10 days or was not given a 48-hour extraction was used in less than 50 % of the 73 studies surveyed. The standard Winkler extraction of the A.L.L. In order to carry out reliable comparisons, the Winkler extraction duration should ideally be sufficient to collect all the ants present in the sample, or at least to provide a correct picture of the assemblage structure. The latter was developed to allow qualitative and quantitative comparisons of ant assemblages at different localities or over time, for use in biological evaluation and conservation, assemblage monitoring, and description of diversity patterns. This method, along with pitfall traps, constitute the fundamental sampling techniques of the standardized “Ants of the Leaf Litter” (A.L.L.) protocol ( Agosti and Alonso 2000). The Winkler extraction is a rapid, simple, cost-effective, and repeatable method to collect ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the leaf litter ( Bestelmeyer et al. Although the moisture content of the leaf litter slightly affected the ant sampling, our results indicated that a 48-hour Winkler extraction, as recommended by the “Ants of the Leaf Litter” protocol, is sufficient to allow reliable comparisons of ant assemblages. However, doubling the extraction time did not improve the estimations of the ant species richness, composition, and relative abundance. The efficiency of the Winkler method to extract ant individuals over a 48-hour period decreased with the moisture content of the leaf litter sample. In an Ecuadorian mountain rainforest, the leaf litter present under rainfall-excluded and rainfall-allowed plots was collected, its moisture content measured, and its ant fauna extracted with a mini-Winkler apparatus for a 48-hour and a 96-hour period. Here, we tested to what extent the efficiency of the ant extraction is affected by the initial moisture content of the leaf litter sample. To achieve this objective, it is essential that the standard 48-hour extraction provides a reliable picture of the assemblages under study. Pitfall and mini-Winkler contribute in different ways for the sampling of the soil beetle community, and so they should be considered complementary for a more thorough assessment of community diversity.The Winkler extraction is one of the two fundamental sampling techniques of the standardized “Ants of the Leaf Litter” protocol, which aims to allow qualitative and quantitative comparisons of ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) assemblages. Each method provided distinct information about the beetle community: 252 species were captured only in pitfall traps, 147 using only the mini-Winkler extractors, and these methods shared another 106 species. Most were caught in pitfalls (69%) and the remainder in the mini-Winkler extractors (31%). We collected a total of 4260 adult beetles comprising 36 families, 113 genera, and 505 species. In each plot, we used nine pitfall traps and collected 2 m(2) of leaf litter and surface soil samples with mini-Winkler extractors. ![]() ![]() We paired treatments with two 10 × 10 m plots in inundated and non-inundated locations that were repeated three times in each location for a total of 18 plots. We compared abundance, species richness, and capture efficiency with pitfall traps and mini-Winkler extractors to examine their use as complementary methods for sampling soil Coleoptera during dry (2010) and high water seasons (2011) in three areas, including inundated and non-inundated regions, in the Pantanal of Poconé, Mato Grosso, Brazil.
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