Rainforest Alliance, not accurate

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Acromyrmexbob
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Rainforest Alliance, not accurate

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Wed May 18, 2016 12:31 pm

Read this recently, found that they have manufactured 'facts' which are wrong to make their point

http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/kids ... cutter-ant

At the end of the article they state "The main natural predator of leafcutter ants is the armadillo. However, as leafcutter ants are an integral part of the rainforest ecosystem, when the forests disappear, so do they."
Firstly I am unsure that the Armadillo is the main threat to Leaf Cutters. I think it is the subterranean Army Ant Nomamyrmex esenbeckii in most of their range. But then they say that as Rainforest disappears so do Leaf Cutters. In fact the reverse tends to be true. Few species of Leaf Cutters nest in dense forest. In there the sun does not heat the ground so the ants are not able to forage and behave naturally. So most species seek forest clearings and open land to nest. With the acceleration of deforestation, the Ants are finding more habitats that are exposed to the sun and so they are increasing. I suspect that the statement "so as the rainforest disappears, so does the 'blank'" where blank can be any animal, appears in most of their articles.

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