Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2009 number 3

Ant faunа of the Chuiskaya depression was determined to have 17 species; 4 of them inhabit the desert steppe, 8 - the near-water saline steppe, and 11 - the mountainside valley meadows and forests. Widespread in adjacent Mongolia and Tuva are 14 out of 17 registered species. This is an evidence of the high faunal community of these territories. The population pattern of ants is determined by two species with extremely low number (up to 0.01 nest/100 m²), Proformica mongolica Ruzsky and Cataglyphis aenescens Nylander; Formica subpilosa Ruzsky joins them in the hollows. Two zones of higher number were revealed in the vertical direction - on the southern slopes of the high-mountain desert steppes (basin of the Yustyd river) and alkaline biotopes of the Chuya river flood-lands.