CerroJesus

Ants of Cerro Jesus, Nicaragua

Report by John T. (Jack) Longino, The University of Utah; Michael G. Branstetter, The University of California, Davis; Laura D. Sáenz, Universidad de San Carlos, Guatemala; and P. S. Ward, The University of California, Davis.

This is a working list of the ants of Cerro Jesus, Nicaragua, based on Project LLAMA sampling. Specimen records have been uploaded to the AntWeb database and are periodically updated.

This is a static webpage with links to the AntWeb species pages, where you can see distribution maps on Google Earth. If links are dead, that means the database has changed as hypotheses of species boundaries evolve and names change.

There is a minimum of 81 species so far recorded.

Cerro Jesús is the second tallest peak in Nicaragua, reaching 1,792 m. It is located in the department of Nueva Segovia 8 km north of the agricultural town of Jalapa. The Nicaraguan side of Cerro Jesús is owned by the Jesus Mountain Coffee Company. They grow shaded coffee between 1,000 and 1,400 m elevation, but maintain primary and secondary forest up to the peak. The forested habitats include pine, and Liquidambar forests down lower, and oak cloud forest around the peak. Many of the oak trees are very large, suggesting that patches of the forest have had little to no disturbance. Two miniWinkler transects were done in oak cloud forest in areas that appeared pristine. Transect 1 was done lower down the mountain between 1,600-1700 m. Transect 2 crossed the peak of the mountain and had an average elevation of 1,700 m. Additional leaf litter samples were collected from 1,000 m up to the peak. For more information about Cerro Jesús visit the Jesus Mountain Coffee Company website: http://www.jesusmountaincoffee.com/jesus_mountain.htm.