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A Method for Quantifying Foliage-Dwelling Arthropods
Published on: October 20, 2019
Tradeoffs, competition, and coexistence in eastern deciduous forest ant communities
Katharine L Stuble1, Mariano A Rodriguez-Cabal, Gail L McCormick
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA. kstuble@utk.edu
Oecologia
|December 18, 2012
Summary
Ant species coexistence is complex. In a deciduous forest, temporal niche partitioning, with dominant ants foraging at night and subdominant ants foraging during the day, was the primary mechanism observed.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Entomology
- Behavioral Ecology
Background:
- Explaining species coexistence, especially in species-rich ant assemblages with intense interspecific competition, is a long-standing ecological challenge.
- Several mechanisms, including tradeoffs and niche partitioning (spatial, thermal, temporal), have been proposed to explain ant community structure.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the prevalence of proposed coexistence mechanisms within a specific deciduous forest ant assemblage in eastern North America.
- To determine which coexistence mechanisms, if any, are actively shaping this particular ant community.
Main Methods:
- Conducted a series of field observations and experiments on an ant assemblage in an eastern North American deciduous forest.
- Systematically examined the assemblage for evidence supporting proposed coexistence mechanisms like dominance-discovery tradeoffs, thermal tolerance tradeoffs, spatial segregation, and temporal niche partitioning.
Main Results:
- No evidence was found for dominance-discovery tradeoffs, dominance-thermal tolerance tradeoffs, spatial segregation, or temperature-based niche partitioning.
- A significant pattern of temporal niche partitioning was observed: behaviorally dominant ant species predominantly foraged at night, while subdominant species foraged during the day.
Conclusions:
- Many commonly cited mechanisms for ant species coexistence may not be universally applicable across all ant assemblages.
- Temporal segregation of foraging activity appears to be a key mechanism promoting coexistence among ant species in this ecosystem, mirroring patterns seen in other taxa.
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