Effects of short-term warming on low and high latitude forest ant communities

Pelini, Shannon L.; Boudreau, Mark; McCoy, Neil; Ellison, Aaron M.; Gotelli, Nicholas J.; Sanders, Nathan J.; Dunn, Robert R.

doi:10.1890/es11-00097.1

Cited by 31 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…For instance, if Crematogaster lineolata benefits from warming by increasing foraging, evenness of the assemblage could be reduced by competitive displacement [44]; such results have also been observed for plant assemblages [48]. Effects of warming on species interactions have been demonstrated in a variety of aquatic and terrestrial systems [49], [50] including plant-herbivore [51], host-parasitoid [52], and trophic interactions [14], [53]–[56], ultimately influencing the composition of communities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Using Historical and Experimental Data to Reveal Warming Effects on Ant Assemblages

et al. 2014

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Historical records of species are compared with current records to elucidate effects of recent climate change. However, confounding variables such as succession, land-use change, and species invasions make it difficult to demonstrate a causal link between changes in biota and changes in climate. Experiments that manipulate temperature can overcome this issue of attribution, but long-term impacts of warming are difficult to test directly. Here we combine historical and experimental data to explore effects of warming on ant assemblages in southeastern US. Observational data span a 35-year period (1976–2011), during which mean annual temperatures had an increasing trend. Mean summer temperatures in 2010–2011 were ∼2.7°C warmer than in 1976. Experimental data come from an ongoing study in the same region, for which temperatures have been increased ∼1.5–5.5°C above ambient from 2010 to 2012. Ant species richness and evenness decreased with warming under natural but not experimental warming. These discrepancies could have resulted from differences in timescales of warming, abiotic or biotic factors, or initial species pools. Species turnover tended to increase with temperature in observational and experimental datasets. At the species level, the observational and experimental datasets had four species in common, two of which exhibited consistent patterns between datasets. With natural and experimental warming, collections of the numerically dominant, thermophilic species, Crematogaster lineolata, increased roughly two-fold. Myrmecina americana, a relatively heat intolerant species, decreased with temperature in natural and experimental warming. In contrast, species in the Solenopsis molesta group did not show consistent responses to warming, and Temenothorax pergandei was rare across temperatures. Our results highlight the difficulty of interpreting community responses to warming based on historical records or experiments alone. Because some species showed consistent responses to warming based on thermal tolerances, understanding functional traits may prove useful in explaining responses of species to warming.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Using Historical and Experimental Data to Reveal Warming Effects on Ant Assemblages

et al. 2014

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“…One exception is a long‐term forest warming experiment at two sites located near the endpoints of the latitudinal transect we sampled (Pelini et al ., ). Work in this system has focused on ants and has consistently found striking and heterogeneous effects of warming on community composition and species abundances at the midlatitude site, and weaker effects at the high‐latitude site (Pelini et al ., , ; Diamond et al ., ; Stuble et al ., ). These results are similar to ours and support the pattern of midlatitude heterogeneity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

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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“…Other studies have demonstrated that air temperature can potentially influence ant community structure (Arnan et al 2007, Wittman et al 2010, Lessard et al 2011, diversity (Kaspari et al 2000, Sanders et al 2007, Pelini et al 2011a), colony survival , worker density (Pelini et al 2011a, Diamond et al 2012a, foraging behavior (Ruano et al 2000, Pelini et al 2011a, Stuble et al 2013, and competitive interactions (Cerda et al 1997(Cerda et al , 1998.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2014

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Abstract. Ecological communities are being reshaped by climatic change. Losses and gains of species will alter community composition and diversity but these effects are likely to vary geographically and may be hard to predict from uncontrolled ''natural experiments''. In this study, we used open-top warming chambers to simulate a range of warming scenarios for ground-nesting ant communities at a northern (Harvard Forest, MA) and southern (Duke Forest, NC) study site in the eastern US. After 2.5 years of experimental warming, we found no significant effects of accumulated growing degree days or soil moisture on ant diversity or community composition at the northern site, but a decrease in asymptotic species richness and changes in community composition at the southern site. However, fewer than 10% of the species at either site responded significantly to the warming treatments. Our results contrast with those of a comparable natural experiment conducted along a nearby elevational gradient, in which species richness and composition responded strongly to changes in temperature and other correlated variables. Together, our findings provide some support for the prediction that warming will have a larger negative effect on ecological communities in warmer locales at lower latitudes and suggest that predicted responses to warming may differ between controlled field experiments and unmanipulated thermal gradients.

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Effects of short-term warming on low and high latitude forest ant communities

Cited by 31 publications

References 46 publications

Using Historical and Experimental Data to Reveal Warming Effects on Ant Assemblages

Using Historical and Experimental Data to Reveal Warming Effects on Ant Assemblages

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

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

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