Breakdown in seasonal dynamics of subtropical ant communities with land-cover change

Kass, Jamie M.; Yoshimura, Masashi; Ogasawara, Masako; Suwabe, Mayuko; Hita Garcia, Francisco; Fischer, Georg; Dudley, Kenneth L.; Donohue, Ian; Economo, Evan P.

doi:10.1098/rspb.2023.1185

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…As expected, community composition of male ants flying during the wet and dry seasons were significantly different. Seasonal effects on ant communities are widespread for tropical ant communities [48][49], especially in seasonally dry forests [11], varying both in temperature and precipitation regimes [50]. Nonetheless, in this long-term study (16 years), only a small directional trend was observed for community composition, and this occurred only for the wet season assemblages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Climate drives the long-term reproductive investment of a tropical ant community

Uquillas,

Bonilla,

Arizala

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Forecasting insect responses to environmental variables at local and global spatial scales remains a crucial task in ecology. However, predicting future responses requires long-term datasets, which are rarely available for insects, especially in the tropics. From 2002 to 2017, we recorded male ant incidence, a measure of ant reproductive investment, of 155 ant species at ten sites on Barro Colorado Island. In this Panamanian tropical rainforest, Malaise traps were deployed for two weeks during the wet and dry seasons. Short-term changes in community structure were pronounced, and compositionally distinct assemblages flew during the wet and dry seasons. Notably, the composition of these distinct assemblages oscillated in a consistent 5-year cycle but did not change during the 16-y study period. Across time, a Seasonal Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMAX) model explained 75% of long-term variability in male ant incidence, which responded negatively to monthly maximum temperature and positively to sea surface temperature, a surrogate for El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Establishing these relationships allowed us to forecast ant incidence for five years until 2022, when year-long local climate variables were available. Consistent with the data, the forecast indicated no significant changes in long-term temporal trends of male ant incidence between 2017 and 2022. However, simulations of probable changes in ant incidence given different scenarios of climatic variables showed that strong El Niño events and maximum temperature are the environmental factors that could impact ant incidence the most. Our results highlight the dependence of ant reproductive investment on both short- and long-term changes in temperature, which is critical under current global warming scenarios.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Climate drives the long-term reproductive investment of a tropical ant community

Uquillas,

Bonilla,

Arizala

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…The data that support the findings of this study and all R code to reproduce the analyses are available in the Zenodo digital repository as Ross, S. R. P.-J., Friedman, N. R., Dudley, K. L., Yoshimura, M., Yoshida, T., Economo, E. P., Armitage, D. W., & Donohue, I. (2023).…”

Section: Data Ava I L a B I L I T Y S Tat E M E N Tmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…For example, our focal species differ in their seasonality and phenology, meaning that natural phenological differences may be in part responsible for the differences in species' typhoon responses we observed here. A recent study of Okinawan ants showed that ant activity was more seasonal in forested than developed field sites, and that these patterns in seasonality were driven by asynchronous seasonal dynamics of different ant species at the community level (Kass et al., 2023). This raises the possibility that land development degraded seasonal dynamics in the soundscape, possibly contributing to differences in the spatial divergence of SPL High among forested but less so among developed field sites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent ecological responses to typhoon disturbance revealed via landscape‐scale acoustic monitoring

Ross,

Friedman,

Dudley

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Climate change is increasing the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme weather events across the globe. Understanding the capacity for ecological communities to withstand and recover from such events is critical. Typhoons are extreme weather events that are expected to broadly homogenize ecological dynamics through structural damage to vegetation and longer‐term effects of salinization. Given their unpredictable nature, monitoring ecological responses to typhoons is challenging, particularly for mobile animals such as birds. Here, we report spatially variable ecological responses to typhoons across terrestrial landscapes. Using a high temporal resolution passive acoustic monitoring network across 24 sites on the subtropical island of Okinawa, Japan, we found that typhoons elicit divergent ecological responses among Okinawa's diverse terrestrial habitats, as indicated by increased spatial variability of biological sound production (biophony) and individual species detections. This suggests that soniferous communities are capable of a diversity of different responses to typhoons. That is, spatial insurance effects among local ecological communities provide resilience to typhoons at the landscape scale. Even though site‐level typhoon impacts on soundscapes and bird detections were not particularly strong, monitoring at scale with high temporal resolution across a broad spatial extent nevertheless enabled detection of spatial heterogeneity in typhoon responses. Further, species‐level responses mirrored those of acoustic indices, underscoring the utility of such indices for revealing insight into fundamental questions concerning disturbance and stability. Our findings demonstrate the significant potential of landscape‐scale acoustic sensor networks to capture the understudied ecological impacts of unpredictable extreme weather events.

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“…For example, our focal species differ in their seasonality and phenology, meaning that natural phenological differences may be in part responsible for the differences in species’ typhoon responses we observed here. A recent study of Okinawan ants showed that ant activity was more seasonal in forested than developed field sites, and that these patterns in seasonality were driven by asynchronous seasonal dynamics of different ant species at the community level (Kass et al, 2023). This raises the possibility that land development degraded seasonal dynamics in the soundscape, possibly contributing to differences in the spatial divergence of SPL High among forested but less so among developed field sites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent ecological responses to typhoon disturbance revealed via landscape-scale acoustic monitoring

Ross

Friedman

Armitage

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate change is increasing the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme weather events across the globe. Understanding the capacity for ecological communities to withstand and recover from such events is critical. Typhoons are extreme weather events that are expected to broadly homogenise ecosystems through structural damage to vegetation and longer-term effects of salinization. Given their unpredictable nature, monitoring ecological responses to typhoons is challenging, particularly for mobile animals such as birds. Here, we report spatially variable ecological responses to typhoons across terrestrial landscapes. Using a high temporal resolution passive acoustic monitoring network across 24 sites on the subtropical island of Okinawa, Japan, we found that typhoons elicit divergent ecological responses among Okinawa's pristine forests, as indicated by increased spatial variability of biological sound production (biophony) among forested sites. However, no such post-typhoon shift in variability was observed among developed urban or agricultural sites. This indicates that natural forests have a diversity of pathways through which communities can respond to typhoons, whereas land use development produces communities more constrained in their disturbance responses. That is, spatial insurance effects among forest communities may provide resilience to typhoons at the landscape scale, but this spatial insurance was diminished by habitat degradation through land use development. Though site-level typhoon impacts on soundscapes and bird detections were not particularly strong, we nevertheless revealed spatial heterogeneity in typhoon responses, owing to the data resolution afforded to us by monitoring at scale (high temporal resolution, broad spatial extent). Our findings underscore the importance of natural forests in insuring ecosystems against disturbance, and demonstrate the potential of landscape-scale acoustic sensor networks for documenting the understudied ecological impacts of unpredictable extreme weather events.

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Breakdown in seasonal dynamics of subtropical ant communities with land-cover change

Cited by 4 publications

References 84 publications

Climate drives the long-term reproductive investment of a tropical ant community

Climate drives the long-term reproductive investment of a tropical ant community

Divergent ecological responses to typhoon disturbance revealed via landscape‐scale acoustic monitoring

Divergent ecological responses to typhoon disturbance revealed via landscape-scale acoustic monitoring

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