STUDI PREFERENSI PAKAN SEMUT HITAM UNTUK MENDUKUNG KONSERVASI MUSUH ALAMI PADA SISTEM AGROFORESTRI BERBASIS KOPI DI DESA PACE KABUPATEN JEMBER

Abstract

Black ants, recognized as natural adversaries to the Coffee Berry Borer (CBB), encounter challenges in conservation through ant house technology due to uncertain feeding preferences. This research utilized bamboo-based ant nest with varied food treatments: water (control), honey, coconut sugar, fish meal, a 50:50 blend of honey and coconut sugar, a 50:50 mix of honey and fish meal, and a 50:50 mix of coconut sugar and fish meal. The investigation employed rigorous statistical analyses, including the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, Mann-Whitney non-parametric test, and Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) qualitative test, providing a comprehensive examination of the factors influencing black ant populations. The Shapiro-Wilk normality test is used to assess the distribution of data. The control treatment with water as food shows a population mean of 9,111 individuals with a significance value of 0.783 (p value > 0.05), indicating that some of the data is not normally distributed. Considering the impact of water as food on the ant population, the Mann-Whitney U test is employed to assess whether there is a significant difference between the food treatments. According to the test, all treatments exhibit p values > 0.05. This implies that there is no significant difference between each type of food treatment. This assumption suggests that black ants do not have a strong tendency to choose or avoid any of the seven types of food provided. However, when looking at the population numbers in each treatment, coconut sugar (mean = 9.873 individuals) is the most preferred food for ants compared to other food types.