Do terrestrial invertebrates experience floodplains as landscape mosaics?
Australian Centre for Biodiversity, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia. andrea.ballinger@dse.vic.gov.au Considering the floodplain landscape as a mosaic of habitat patches at different successional stages is useful for understanding (1) the processes associated with individual floods and (2) the legacy of flood history. Here, we investigate the applicability of the mosaic model to opportunistic ant species inhabiting the floodplain. Ground-active ant assemblages in river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) floodplain forest in south-eastern Australia were sampled before and for two years after a major flood in 2000-2001 at 24 sites with different inundation histories. Despite the mobility and opportunistic life history traits of floodplain ants, flood history appeared to impose a persistent mosaic structure on ant assemblages. Increasing duration of inundation of the forest floor was associated with decreasing species richness. beta-diversity was l
