American Research Journal of Genetics

The major focus of this piece is on the habitats, both undisturbed and degraded, that are found inside the Great Indian Bustard Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Because of the speed with which they react to changes in their natural environment, ants serve as reliable indicators of the presence of disturbance. Ants were gathered using a range of techniques, such as pitfall traps, scented traps, and hand collection methods. The two habitats were quite different from one another in terms of the amount of human disturbance that occurred in each. There were a total of 19 distinct species of ants found in the forest, including those that were found in undisturbed areas as well as those that had been harmed. In the region that was the subject of the study, there were seven species of Myrmicinae, which accounted for thirty-five percent of the total, six species of Formicinae, three species of Pseudomyrmecinae, two species of Ponerinae, which accounted for ten percent, and one species each of Dolichoderinae and Dorylinae (representing 5 percent each). It was revealed that all three species of ants were not present in disturbed habitats; however, the Leptogenyschinesis ant was never seen in a forest environment that had not been disturbed. At the location of the undisturbed forest, the Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H’) was much higher than the one at the location of the damaged forest, which was 2.76. (2.46). Between regions of damaged forest and parts of undisturbed forest, there was a considerable variation in the ant population as well as the species mix that was present.