BAH! – Brazilian Ant Habitat
Brazil is the world center of ant biodiversity. Yet obtaining ecological information about ant species across the country is a challenging task, as data are often scattered in field books, scientific papers, and online databases.
To make this information easier to access, we developed BAH! – Brazilian Ant Habitats, a platform that aggregates ecological data on Brazilian ants into a single, open-access resource. Our database focuses on two key ecological information, species occurrence throughout Brazilian biomes and habitat-use guilds. This information is desirable to support research in ecology, conservation, and bioindication.
Biomes
We considered broadly the following Brazilian Biomes:
- Amazônia – Amazon
- Caatinga – Dry Forest
- Cerrado – Brazilian Savanna
- Mata Atlântica – Atlantic Forest
- Pampa – Southern Grassland
- Pantanal – Wetland
To register the ant species occurrence in each biome, we considered extensive ant surveys carried out in Brazil. These ant surveys are reported at: Leal et al. (2017), Vasconcelos et al. (2018), Andrade-Silva et al. (2022), Feitosa et al. (2022), Carvalho et al. (2025), Barbosa et al. (2025)
We accounted 1,350 ant species to Brazil, which 1,013 ant species occur in Amazon, followed by Atlantic Forest (692), Brazilian Savanna (367), Wetland (274), Dry Forest (213) and Southern Grassland (211) – see Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Ant species richness throughout Brazilian biomes
Habitat – Use Guilds
We considered the following habitat-use guilds:
- Forest specialists – species restricted to forest habitats.
- Generalists – species able to inhabit both forests and open areas.
- Open-habitat specialists – species found exclusively in open environments.
To classify the ant species in these habitat-use guilds we followed the protocol provided by Dutra et al. (2024). These guilds respond differently to ecological gradients and land-use changes, making them powerful tools for community ecology and environmental monitoring.
We obtained the habitat-use guild for 1,221 ant species, which 763 are forest specialists, 294 generalists and 164 open-habitat specialists – see Figure 2 bellow. Furthermore, we accounted the proportion of each habitat-use guild for the species richness reported to each biome – see Figure 3 bellow.
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Figure 2. Ant species richness according to habitat-use guild. Species for which guild information was unavailable (n = 129) were excluded
Figure 3. Proportion of habitat-use guilds for the ant species richness of each Brazilian biome
Why BAH! matters
Until now, a major limitation for researchers and students has been the lack of a centralized, quickly accessible source of ecological information for ants that occur in Brazil. With BAH!, that gap is finally being filled.
Our mission
We currently provide updated habitat-use and occurrence information for hundreds of Brazilian ant species, and our goal is to expand the platform to include data on microhabitats, and ecosystem functions.
References
- Andrade-Silva, J., Baccaro, F.B., Prado, L.P., Guénard, B., Kass, J.M., Warren, D.L., Economo, E.P. and Silva, R.R. (2024), Common ant species dominate morphospace: unraveling the morphological diversity in the Brazilian Amazon Basin. Ecography, 2024: e07121. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.07121
- Barbosa, G. G., Carvalho, D. A., Silva, C. V., Dröse, W., Sendoya, S. F., & Podgaiski, L. R. (2025). ANTS OF THE BRAZILIAN PAMPA: INSIGHTS INTO DIVERSITY, DISTRIBUTION AND CONSERVATION. BRAZILIAN MYRMECOLOGY: EXPLORING THE WORLD’S RICHEST ANT FAUNA. São Paulo: Científica Digital, p. 443-464. https://doi.org/10.37885/250920262
- CARVALHO, Suelen S. et al. (2025) PANTANAL ANTS: ESTABLISHING A DATA SET OF ANT COMMUNITIES FROM THE BRAZILIAN WETLAND. BRAZILIAN MYRMECOLOGY: EXPLORING THE WORLD’S RICHEST ANT FAUNA. São Paulo: Científica Digital, p. 422-442. https://doi.org/10.37885/250920261
- Dutra, D.B., Feitosa, R.M., Jory, T.T. et al. (2024). Ant habitat-use guilds response to forest-pasture shifting in the southwestern Amazon. J Insect Conserv 28, 305–313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-023-00544-1
- Feitosa, R. M., Camacho, G. P., Silva, T. S. R., Ulysséa, M. A., Ladino, N., Oliveira, A. M., … Darocha, W. (2022). Ants of Brazil: an overview based on 50 years of diversity studies. Systematics and Biodiversity, 20(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2022.2089268
- Leal, I.R. et al. (2017). Ants of the Caatinga: Diversity, Biogeography, and Functional Responses to Anthropogenic Disturbance and Climate Change. In: Silva, J.M.C., Leal, I.R., Tabarelli, M. (eds) Caatinga. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68339-3_3
- Vasconcelos HL, Maravalhas JB, Feitosa RM, Pacheco R, Neves KC, Andersen AN (2018). Neotropical savanna ants show a reversed latitudinal gradient of species richness, with climatic drivers reflecting the forest origin of the fauna. J Biogeogr. 45: 248–258. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13113
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