Hindawi Publishing Corporation Psyche Volume 2012, Article ID 896473, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/896473 Research Article Undecomposed Twigs in the Leaf Litter as Nest-Building Resources for Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Areas of the Atlantic Forest in the Southeastern Region of Brazil Tae Tanaami Fernandes,1 Rogerio´ Rosa da Silva,2 Debora´ Rodrigues de Souza,1 Natalia´ Araujo,´ 1 and Maria Santina de Castro Morini1 1 Laboratorio´ de Mirmecologia, Universidade de Mogi das Cruzes, 08701-970 Mogi das Cruzes, SP, Brazil 2 Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de Sao˜ Paulo, Avenida Nazar´e 481, Ipiranga, 04263-000 Sao˜ Paulo, SP, Brazil Correspondence should be addressed to Maria Santina de Castro Morini,
[email protected] Received 12 June 2012; Revised 15 September 2012; Accepted 17 September 2012 Academic Editor: Diana E. Wheeler Copyright © 2012 Tae Tanaami Fernandes et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In tropical forests, the leaf-litter stratum exhibits one of the greatest abundances of ant species. This diversity is associated with the variety of available locations for nest building. Ant nests can be found in various microhabitats, including tree trunks and fallen twigs in different stages of decomposition. In this study, we aimed to investigate undecomposed twigs as nest-building resources in the leaf litter of dense ombrophilous forest areas in the southeastern region of Brazil. Demographic data concerning the ant colonies, the physical characteristics of the nests, and the population and structural of the forest were observed.