Oil palm plantations support substantially less biodiversity than natural forests when it comes to ant species, reports new research published in Basic and Applied Ecology.

Tom Fayle, a Cambridge University biologist, and colleagues sampled ant populations in a rainforest in Danum Valley Conservation Area and nearby oil palm plantations in Sabah, a state in Malaysian Borneo. The researchers counted 16,000 worker ants from 309 species in the natural forest but only in 110 species at the oil palm plantation.

The results are similar findings for other groups of animals, including birds and butterflies. Overall oil palm plantations are biologically impoverished relative to even selectively logged forests. The single-species monoculture offers fewer ecological niches than natural forests, providing fewer opportunities for plants and animals.

"Although oil palm plantations a higher diversity of ants than previously reported, we found that expansion of oil palm into rain forest still causes the loss of 81% of forest ant species," Fayle told mongabay.com.

The researchers also noted that invasive species are more common in oil palm plantations.

By Rhett A. Butler