Primary Study on Ant Species Diversity on East Slope of the Meili Snow Mountain

The ant communities on the east slope of the Meili Snow Mountain between 2 250 m and 3 250 m in elevation were surveyed for the first time by means of plot investigation method.Totally 1 704 ant samples were collected, which belonged to 21 species, 12 genera and 3 subfamilies.Among which 13 were known species and 8 were unknown ones.It was showed that the ant fauna of the Meili Snow Mountain was a mixture of(Oriental) and Palearctic compositions, being dominated by the Oriental composition.According to the diversity index analyses, the highest species diversity was found at the upper slope, the lower indexes appeared at the middle and low portions of the east slope, and there was the lowest species diversity in the dry warm valley at the foot of the mountain.In the light of the similarity coefficients of the ant communities, it was concluded that there was distinct divergence among the vertical zones on the east slope, i.e., the similarity among the studied ant communities was extremely low.Based on the status of biodiversity conservation, it was indicated that the area(above) 3 000 m in elevation on east slope of the Meili Snow Mountain basically remained the natural status, the area below 2 750 m had been significantly disturbed by local people and tourism activities, and the strongest anthropogenic disturbance was observed around 2 500 m in the dry warm valley.