WESTERN FRONTIER IN BRAZILIAN ANT DIVERSITY: CONTRIBUTION OF REDE BIA TO ANT DIVERSITY KNOW IN SOUTHWESTERN AMAZON

Brazil is the country with the greatest diversity of ants. However, due to its vast size and uneven scientific development, there are still considerable areas with extensive gaps in diversity records. One of these gaps is the state of Acre, located in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon, which represents the western most frontier of Brazilian ant diversity. A total of 394 ant species has been recorded in Acre so far, which is relatively low compared to neighboring regions. In an effort to reduce knowledge deficits in insect biodiversity in the Amazon, the project “Biodiversidade de Insetos da Amazônia (Rede BIA)” conducted samplings at 16 sites across the region from 2014 to 2019. As a result, Rede BIA added 40 new ant species records for the state and 66 to the collection of the Laboratório de Ecologia de Insetos. With these and more recent contributions, the current number of recorded ant species in Acre has reached 479. Given the recent findings of ant occurrence and the lack of stabilization in the sampling efficiency in the Rede BIA project, a conservative estimate places the ant species richness in Acre between 750 and 800 species. Considering the high biodiversity value of unsampled areas in Acre, we proposed the implementation of 16 additional sampling sites to increase representativeness and approach the expected ant species richness. However, significant barriers remain, including insufficient funding for field expeditions and a shortage of myrmecologists in the region, both critical obstacles to reaching the expected number.