MonitAnt: Developing a European-level Monitoring strategy for mound-building Formica Ants and symbiont communities residing in nest mounds

造丘蚁(MBF)是一类重要物种，广泛分布于温带、北方森林和天然草原。它们提供重要的生态系统功能，特别是在森林栖息地，它们巨大而长寿的巢穴是广泛的其他物种的栖息地，即所谓的嗜肌动物，专属于蚁类。虽然有越来越多的证据表明，由于森林栖息地的碎片化、气候变化、管理做法的变化或将天然草原转变为更密集使用的农业用地，当地蚂蚁数量下降和灭绝的证据越来越多，但在整个欧洲国家，很大程度上缺乏对这些蚂蚁的种群趋势和威胁状况的评估。这主要是因为缺乏共同的监测战略，但也是因为整个欧盟的保护状况不同。此外，还不清楚依赖于Formica巢穴特殊微生境的众多分类群如何受到上述对MBF的威胁。因此，需要一个国际、协调的框架，以制定具有成本效益和效率的MBF及其相关无脊椎动物群落的共同监测战略，以便对整个欧洲的人口趋势进行比较。目前，大多数欧洲国家都有大量关于堆筑Formica的数据，这些数据通常基于地方到地区的公民科学项目以及由政策制定者发起的监测计划，但这些数据并没有以全欧洲范围内一致的方式处理。在监测蚂蚁项目中，我们将比较公民科学项目和其他监测方案的现有监测战略(主题1)。通过汇编现有数据，我们将能够向利益攸关方(如国家自然保护和林业机构；中央和地方行政当局；欧洲央行)通报跨国医疗保险基金的现状(主题3)。在莫尼蚂特，新制定的监测战略将在跨国一级得到验证，以包括不同的森林和草原类型(在管理方面以及沿大的纬度和海拔梯度)，并有可能在实地加以改进。这一验证阶段将用于收集关于这些伞状物种所寄居的多种无脊椎动物物种的基线数据，以及有助于弥合当前知识差距的生存和繁殖斑块大小阈值(专题2)。莫尼蚂蚁旨在提供统一、高效和成本效益高的监测战略，该战略将免费提供给决策中的利益攸关方，也可用于公民科学项目，目的是能够长期监测造丘蚁(MBF)及其相关嗜粉菌的种群趋势。

Mound-building Formica ants (MBF) are a group of keystone species widespread in temperate and boreal forests and natural grasslands. They provide important ecosystem functions especially in forest habitats and their large and long-lived nests are habitat to a broad range of other species, so-called mymecophiles, specific to Formica ants. While there is increasing evidence of local declines and extinctions due to fragmentation of their forest habitats, climate change, changing management practices, or conversion of natural grasslands to more intensively used agricultural land an assessment of population trends and threat status of these ants across European countries is largely lacking. This is mainly due to the lack of a common monitoring strategy but also due to differences in conservation status throughout the EU. In addition, it is unknown how the multitude of taxa depending on the peculiar microhabitat of Formica nest mounds, are impacted by the above mentioned threats to MBFs. Therefore, an international, coordinated framework is needed to develop a common cost-effective and efficient monitoring strategy of MBFs and their associated invertebrate communities, allowing a comparison of population trends across Europe. Currently, a wealth of data on the occurrence of mound-building Formica is available in most European countries, often based on local to regional Citizen Science projects as well as monitoring programs inititiated by policymakers, but these are not treated in a Europe-wide consistent way. Within the project MonitAnt we will compare existing monitoring strategies of Citizen Science projects and other monitoring programmes (Theme 1). By compiling the available data, we will be able to inform stakeholders (e.g. national nature conservation and forestry agencies; central and local administrations; EuropaBON) on the current status of MBFs on a transnational level (Theme 3). Within MonitAnt the newly developed monitoring strategy will be validated on a transnational level to include different forest and grassland types (in terms of management and along a large latitudinal and elevational gradients) and potentially refined in the field. This validation phase will be used to collect baseline data on the manifold invertebrate species hosted by these umbrella species as well as thresholds of patch sizes for survival and reproduction characterized to help close current knowledge gaps (Theme 2). MonitAnt aims to deliver a harmonized efficient and cost-effective monitoring strategy that will be made freely available to stakeholders in policymaking but also for citizen science projects with the aim that long-term monitoring of population trends of mound-building Formica ants (MBF) and their associated myrmecophiles is enabled.