Geographic differences in effects of experimental warming on ant species diversity and community composition

Pelini, Shannon L.; Diamond, Sarah E.; Nichols, Lauren M.; Stuble, Katharine L.; Ellison, Aaron M.; Sanders, Nathan J.; Dunn, Robert R.; Gotelli, Nicholas J.

doi:10.1890/es14-00143.1

Cited by 31 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Indeed, our analyses of the abundances of individual ant species and community composition in the warming arrays are already suggestive of potential higher-level consequences of the loss of dynamical stability. Within the warming chamber arrays, we detected substantial shifts in individual ant species abundances ( 13 ) and modest, but significant, shifts in ant community composition with increasing chamber temperature ( 20 ); these shifts tended to favor thermophilic subsets of communities, in some cases at the expense of less heat-tolerant species (see Supplementary Materials for a more detailed discussion of community dynamics and compositional changes).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Because the behavior and activity of ectotherms strongly depend on ambient temperature ( 17 , 18 ), standard sampling procedures, such as pitfall traps may passively accumulate more individuals, even if the only effect of elevated temperatures is the increased random movement of foragers ( 19 ). For example, at the Duke Forest site, foraging activity by ant workers closely tracks seasonal and diurnal fluctuations in temperature ( 11 , 20 ). However, the dynamics of nest site occupancy by colonies refute this null hypothesis of simple temperature-driven activity levels.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ant species with other nesting strategies (for example, soil nesting or arboreal nesting) and rare ant species were either too difficult to monitor or too data-poor for us to model their responses to warming. We note that although our chambers effectively contained entire ant communities, because nest box sampling plus alternative sampling methods, that is, pitfall trapping and litter sifting ( 9 ), yielded species diversity estimates on the order of regional levels of ant biodiversity ( 20 ), we focused our analyses on a subset of nest box–inhabiting species for practical reasons surrounding assessment and modeling.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climatic warming destabilizes forest ant communities

et al. 2016

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Climatic warming destabilizes forest ant communities

et al. 2016

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“…, Pelini et al. ). Likewise, historical datasets collected over many years can uncover likely responses of biotic systems to past climate change (Pitt and Heady , Grabherr et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Outside the envelope: rare events disrupt the relationshipbetween climate factors and species interactions

Stuble

Zefferman

Wolf

et al. 2017

Ecology

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The order in which species arrive during community assembly can be an important driver of community composition and function. However, the strength of these priority effects can be variable, in part because of strong site and year effects. To understand how priority effects vary in importance with abiotic conditions, we initiated identical community assembly experiments in which we varied the timing of arrival of native and exotic grass species in each of 4 yr across three grassland sites in northern California. This uniquely replicated experiment tested the power of priority to determine initial community structure in a restoration context across a natural range of conditions. There were large and significant differences in both total seeded cover and the strength of priority across sites and years of initiation, confirming the suspicion that most ecological experiments may lack spatial and temporal generality. On the other hand, much of the variation in strength of priority could be related to climate. Strikingly, however, the model fit across the three sites and the first 3 yr of the study (the first nine experiments) was radically altered when we included the fourth year, which was characterized by an unusual weather pattern with higher temporal variability in rainfall (a rainfall pattern predicted to increase with climate change). This year produced relatively low strength of priority, supporting the suggestion that highly variable climates may be associated with lower strength of priority effects. Experiments that examine community assembly over a range of naturally occurring abiotic conditions enhance our ability to predict when priority effects will be important, allowing us to explore shifting patterns of community assembly in the face of climate change and optimize restoration strategies based on environmental conditions.

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“…() to detect thermal trends in community composition, as described by Pelini et al . (). We analyzed each city separately.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of arthropod populations to warming depend on latitude: evidence from urban heat islands

Youngsteadt

Ernst

Dunn

et al. 2016

Global Change Biology

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Biological effects of climate change are expected to vary geographically, with a strong signature of latitude. For ectothermic animals, there is systematic latitudinal variation in the relationship between climate and thermal performance curves, which describe the relationship between temperature and an organism's fitness. Here, we ask whether these documented latitudinal patterns can be generalized to predict arthropod responses to warming across mid- and high temperate latitudes, for taxa whose thermal physiology has not been measured. To address this question, we used a novel natural experiment consisting of a series of urban warming gradients at different latitudes. Specifically, we sampled arthropods from a single common street tree species across temperature gradients in four US cities, located from 35.8 to 42.4° latitude. We captured 6746 arthropods in 34 families from 111 sites that varied in summer average temperature by 1.7-3.4 °C within each city. Arthropod responses to warming within each city were characterized as Poisson regression coefficients describing change in abundance per °C for each family. Family responses in the two midlatitude cities were heterogeneous, including significantly negative and positive effects, while those in high-latitude cities varied no more than expected by chance within each city. We expected high-latitude taxa to increase in abundance with warming, and they did so in one of the two high-latitude cities; in the other, Queens (New York City), most taxa declined with warming, perhaps due to habitat loss that was correlated with warming in this city. With the exception of Queens, patterns of family responses to warming were consistent with predictions based on known latitudinal patterns in arthropod physiology relative to regional climate. Heterogeneous responses in midlatitudes may be ecologically disruptive if interacting taxa respond oppositely to warming.

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Geographic differences in effects of experimental warming on ant species diversity and community composition

Cited by 31 publications

References 54 publications

Climatic warming destabilizes forest ant communities

Climatic warming destabilizes forest ant communities

Outside the envelope: rare events disrupt the relationshipbetween climate factors and species interactions

Responses of arthropod populations to warming depend on latitude: evidence from urban heat islands

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