THE ANT FAUNA OF A MALLEE OUTLIER NEAR MELTON, VICTORIA 
Alan N. Andersen 1 ’ 3 , Bronwyn A. Myers 1 
and Karen M. Buckingham 2 
•School of Botany, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052 
department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052 
3 Present address: Division of Wildlife and Ecology, CSIRO Tropical Ecosystems Research Centre, 
PMB 44 Winnellie, Northern Territory 0821 
Andersen, A. N., Myers, B. A. & Buckingham, K. M., 1991:06:30. The ant fauna of a 
mallee outlier near Melton, Victoria. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 103 
(1): 1-6. ISSN 0035-9211. 
Long Forest mallee, near Melton, Victoria, occurs 110 km from the nearest other malice 
vegetation and is therefore of considerable biogeographic interest. Ants were sampled 
directly by hand and by pitfall trapping during 1983-1985, with a total of 77 species from 21 
genera recorded. The fauna was dominated by the meat ant, Iridomyrmexpurpureas (29% of 
all ants in traps), with species of Monomorium (8 species, total of 25% of all ants), Pheidole 
(5 species, 13% of all ants), and Notoncas “enormis" (8% of all ants) also abundant. In many 
respects the fauna resembles that at Wyperfeld National Park located in the major mallee 
region of northwestern Victoria: many species and species-groups are shared, and the overall 
biogeographical profiles and composition of functional groups are similar. However, the 
Long Forest fauna has several important differences which reflect the site’s southerly 
location, including a lower species to genus ratio, a lower representation of Eyrean taxa, a 
higher abundance of Bassian elements, and the occurrence of some species characteristic of 
cooler and wetter parts of southern Victoria. 
AN ISOLATED outlier of mallee vegetation 
(hereafter referred to as Long Forest mallee) 
occurs south of the Great Dividing Range in a 
rain-shadow area (mean annual rainfall approxi¬ 
mately 500 mm) near Melton, 50 km west of 
Melbourne. It is by far the most southerly patch 
of mallee in southeastern Australia, occurring 
110 km southeast from the nearest similar veg¬ 
etation at Bendigo. Several plant species found 
in Long Forest mallee, such as Rhagodia para- 
bolica (only found in Victoria in the immediate 
region), Sclerolaena diacantha and Myoporum 
deserti , are characteristic of the arid zone (Myers 
et al. 1986). 
The insect fauna of Long Forest mallee is 
poorly known but clearly is of considerable bio¬ 
geographic interest. Here we document the ant 
fauna of a site within Long Forest mallee and 
compare it with those of two well-studied sites 
which represent biogeographic contrasts in Vic¬ 
toria. One of these sites is at Wyperfeld National 
Park (mean annual rainfall approximately 400 
mm) in the major mallee region of semi-arid 
northwestern Victoria (Andersen 1983, 1984, 
Andersen & Yen 1985), and the other is Wilsons 
Promontory (mean annual rainfall 1000-1200 
mm) on the southern coast (Andersen 1986a, b, 
1988). These sites support contrasting ant 
faunas. The major elements at Wilsons Promon¬ 
tory are Bassian taxa (Andersen 1991a) such as 
the nitidiceps-foetans complex of Iridomyrmex , 
Rhytidoponera tasmaniensis, R. victoriae, and 
species of Notoncus and Prolasius. Arid-adapted 
(Eyrean) taxa such as Melophorus spp. are poorly 
represented. A substantial number of Bassian 
elements are also present at Wyperfeld but they 
occur within a framework of predominantly 
arid-adapted taxa, particularly species of Irido¬ 
myrmex, Camponotus and Melophorus. These 
three genera represent the “core” taxa of Aus¬ 
tralian arid-zone communities, together usually 
contributing about half the total species 
(Greenslade 1979, Greenslade & Greenslade 
1989). 
STUDY SITE 
Long Forest mallee is described in detail by 
Myers et al. (1986). It occupies an area of ap¬ 
proximately 1.5 km 2 (it was three times this size 
before clearing commenced 25 years ago), and is 
dominated by the mallee eucalypt E. behriana of 
up to 10 m in height, with a sparse understorey 
of grasses, perennial herbs and chenopods. The 
soil is a Tertiary sandy clay. The study was con¬ 
ducted within an area of approximately 1 ha, 
located in a property owned by Dr and Mrs M. 
Baker. 
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