The role of wood ants (Formica rufa group) on decomposition process: preliminary result

Wood ants (Formica rufa group) are dominating ecosystem elements in coniferous forests of the temperate region. They build the large nests on aboveground with organic material and resin collected from the forest floor. These mounds have higher temperature and lower water content than the surrounding forest floor. We studied how these peculiar environmental conditions affected litter mass loss and carbon (C), nitrogen (N), potassium (K), phosphor (P), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe) and aluminium (Al) mineralisation of organic matter. The study conducted in temperate Black pine (Pinus nigra Arnold.) forest stands in ？ank？r？ Karatekin University Faculty of Forestry Research Forest using the litterbag technique. Black pine needle litter was incubated in adjacent the wood ant nest and 10 m away from the nest edge. While we expected decomposition to be slow due to the dryness of the mounds and effect of wood ants, the ant nests were not found to have a significant effect on the temporal variation of mass loss, carbon, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus in the process of litter decomposition. However, the release of manganese, aluminium and iron is slower in ant nests compared to forest soil