Oecophylla smaragdina ants provide pest control in Australian cacao

These data provide counts of Oecophylla smaragdina ants, mealybugs, Amblypelta and Helopeltis bugs, and Rhyparida beetles on a cacao farm where trees in plots were treated or untreated with cacao husks, and trees within plots either had ants present or excluded from trees.

    Data Record Details
    Data record related to this publication Oecophylla smaragdina ants provide pest control in Australian cacao
    Data Publication title Oecophylla smaragdina ants provide pest control in Australian cacao
  • Description

    These data provide counts of Oecophylla smaragdina ants, mealybugs, Amblypelta and Helopeltis bugs, and Rhyparida beetles on a cacao farm where trees in plots were treated or untreated with cacao husks, and trees within plots either had ants present or excluded from trees.

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    • Descriptor

      The research evaluates the effects of the predaceous ant Oecophylla smaragdina on three major pests of Australian cacao (Helopeltis spp., Amblypelta spp. and Rhyparida nitida) in an Australian cacao farm, in the presence and absence of cacao fruit husks, a habitat manipulation utilized to provide habitat and food resources for midge (Ceratopogonidae) pollinators. The research also evaluates the effect of O. smaragdina on their potentially plant-damaging, mutualistic mealybug (Pseudococcidae) partners in the presence and absence of cacao fruit husks. The findings suggest that O. smaragdina ants provide pest control services for three major insect pests in Australian cacao farms, however ants generally increase the densities of mealybugs. Furthermore, this pest control may be compatible with habitat manipulations (i.e., the addition of cacao fruit husks) to improve pollinator habitat. Column titles are Date (date samples were collected), Fortnight (samples were collected fortnightly), Plot (the individual plot identifier), Tree (the individual tree identifier), Husk (present = 1, absent = 0), Ant presence (1 = present, 0 = excluded), OsObs (number of O. smaragdina ants observed), Mealybugs (number of mealybugs observed), Amblypelta (number of Amblypelta observed), Helopeltis (number of Helopeltis observed), and Rhyparida (number of Rhyparida beetles observed).

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    • Descriptor

      This dataset is available as a spreadsheet in MS Excel (.xlsx) and Open Document formats (.ods)

    • Descriptor type Note
  • Data type dataset
  • Keywords
    • cacao
    • biological control
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  • Research themes
    Tropical Ecosystems, Conservation and Climate Change
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  • Locations
    • Puglisi farm, near Miallo, Queensland, Australia
    Data Locations

    Type Location Notes
    Attachment Cacao data for Biotropica.xlsx Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) Format
    Attachment Cacao data for Biotropica.ods Open Document (.ods) Format
    The Data Manager is: Samantha Forbes
    College or Centre
    Access conditions Open: free access under license
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  • Related publications
      Name Forbes, Samantha J., and Northfield, Tobin D. (2017) Oecophylla smaragdina ants provide pest control in Australian cacao. Biotropica, 49 (3). pp. 328-336.
    • URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/btp.12405
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    The data will be licensed under CC BY: Attribution 3.0 AU
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  • Data owners
      Samantha Forbes
    Citation Forbes, Samantha (2016): Oecophylla smaragdina ants provide pest control in Australian cacao. James Cook University. https://doi.org/10.4225/28/57B10D97382B6