Often, ecological restoration is undertaken as a compensatory mitigation to improve the condition of degraded, damaged or destroyed ecosystems. Usually such restoration efforts have monitoring projects as an integral part to ascertain the achievement of the project goals. Thus the success of the restoration program is based on the scientific evaluation of the natural ecosystem, restoration practice and its regular monitoring.

Other than plants, insect diversity is used in assessing the restoration success. Among insects, ants are considered to be particularly useful bio-indicators in evaluating restoration programmes due to their great abundance and functional importance, the great variety of interactions they have with the rest of the ecosystem, and their ability to integrate a wide range of ecological variables. So far, large number of studies on evaluation of restoration success using ants have been carried out in developed countries.

In the Attappady hills, a part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve of the Western Ghats (India), unsustainable land use methods and various anthropogenic activities has converted the forests into an arid and unproductive system. A large-scale restoration project for an integrated and sustainable eco-development of the region was initiated in the year 2000 by Attappady Hills area Development Society, a local NGO to avert further degradation. Though their efforts aim at restoring the biodiversity similar to what existed there earlier, seldom are there any attempts to measure the success of restoration beyond plant survival.

This study involves measuring ant diversity across a gradient of restored sites to develop a monitoring protocol using ant community responses to restoration efforts. The Research question central to the study is: “Whether restoration efforts in Attappady hills successfully provide habitat for a diverse assemblages of ants and does results from monitoring such communities provide a meaningful way to evaluate restoration success?” This research question will be addressed by assessing the pattern of recolonization by ants in the habitats under restoration.

Since ants are popular among everyone, with little training, they can be easily identified to genera and morphospecies by a non expert or a parataxonomist. Thus by developing monitoring methods using ants to assess the restoration success, it will be useful for the restorationists and the local people in decision making regarding their restoration methods.