Ant-mediated ecosystem processes are driven by trophic community structure but mainly by the environment

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Community Ecology
• Ecosystem Services

Background:

• Organismal diversity and function impact ecosystem processes, but this relationship varies across environments.
• Uncertainty exists on whether ecosystem processes are driven by species complementarity or dominant species groups.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate how Neotropical ant community structure (diversity, abundance) influences ecosystem processes across different environments.
• Determine if community structure predicts ecosystem processes and if environmental factors mediate these relationships.

Main Methods:

• Ants were sampled using food baits representing six ecosystem processes in forest and cropland habitats (ground and vegetation strata).
• Exploitation frequencies were used to calculate taxonomic and trophic structures and ant contributions to ecosystem processes (individually and multifunctionality).

Main Results:

• Forests showed higher biodiversity and trophic complementarity but lower dominance than croplands, without impacting ecosystem processes.
• Trophic complementarity was higher in ground strata than vegetation, correlating with greater resource exploitation.
• Environment, rather than community structure alone, best explained variations in ant community performance in ecosystem processes.

Conclusions:

• While trophic indices can predict ant participation in ecosystem processes, environmental context is the primary driver of variations.
• Further research on resource availability is needed to understand how community dominance and complementarity affect ecosystem processes in diverse environments.