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

筑丘蚁是一组广泛分布于温带、寒带森林和天然草原的重要蚁种。它们提供重要的生态系统功能，特别是在森林栖息地，它们的大型和长寿的巢穴是广泛的其他物种的栖息地，所谓的mymecophiles，特别是Formica蚂蚁。虽然有越来越多的证据表明，由于其森林栖息地的破碎化，气候变化，管理方式的变化，或天然草地转化为更密集使用的农业用地，这些蚂蚁在欧洲国家的人口趋势和威胁状态的评估在很大程度上缺乏。这主要是由于缺乏共同的监测战略，也是由于整个欧盟的保护状况不同。此外，目前还不清楚依赖于蚁巢土丘的特殊微生境的众多分类群如何受到上述对MBF的威胁的影响。因此，需要建立一个国际协调框架，以制定一个具有成本效益和高效率的监测医疗保险基金及其相关无脊椎动物群落的共同战略，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蚁丘建筑Formica发生的数据，这些数据通常基于当地到区域的公民科学项目以及政策制定者发起的监测项目，但这些数据并没有以欧洲范围内一致的方式进行处理。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;中央和地方行政部门; EuropaBON）通报跨国一级医疗保险基金的现状（专题3）。将在国家一级验证新制定的监测战略，以包括不同的森林和草原类型（在管理方面以及沿着大的纬度和海拔梯度），并可能在实地加以完善。这一验证阶段将用于收集这些伞种所承载的多种无脊椎动物物种的基线数据，以及生存和繁殖的斑块大小阈值，以帮助弥合目前的知识差距（主题2）。该项目旨在提供一个统一、高效和具有成本效益的监测战略，该战略将免费提供给决策利益攸关方，也可用于公民科学项目，目的是长期监测蚁丘建筑蚁（MBF）及其相关的蚁群的种群趋势。

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.