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Ecosystem-wide morphological structure of leaf-litter ant communities along a tropical latitudinal gradient

Silva, Rogério R ; Brandão, Carlos Roberto F Paine, Timothy D.

PloS one, 2014-03, Vol.9 (3), p.e93049-e93049 [Periódico revisado por pares]

United States: Public Library of Science

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Título:
Ecosystem-wide morphological structure of leaf-litter ant communities along a tropical latitudinal gradient
Autor: Silva, Rogério R ; Brandão, Carlos Roberto F
Paine, Timothy D.
Assuntos: Analysis ; Animal Distribution ; Animals ; Ants ; Ants - anatomy & histology ; Ants - physiology ; Biodiversity ; Biological diversity ; Biology and Life Sciences ; Biota ; Brazil ; Coexistence ; Community structure ; Ecology ; Ecology and Environmental Sciences ; Ecosystems ; Environmental gradient ; Forest ecosystems ; Forests ; Geospatial data ; Heterogeneity ; Leaf litter ; Leaves ; Local communities ; Morphology ; Phylogenetics ; Precipitation (Meteorology) ; Prediction models ; Productivity ; Rain forests ; Rainfall ; Rainforest ; Rainforests ; Redundancy ; Specialization ; Species diversity ; Species richness ; Species Specificity ; Taxonomy ; Tropical Climate ; Tropical forests
É parte de: PloS one, 2014-03, Vol.9 (3), p.e93049-e93049
Notas: ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
Conceived and designed the experiments: CRFB. Performed the experiments: RRS CRFB. Analyzed the data: RRS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CRFB RRS. Wrote the paper: RRS CRFB.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Descrição: General principles that shape community structure can be described based on a functional trait approach grounded on predictive models; increased attention has been paid to factors accounting for the functional diversity of species assemblages and its association with species richness along environmental gradients. We analyze here the interaction between leaf-litter ant species richness, the local communities' morphological structure and fundamental niche within the context of a northeast-southeast latitudinal gradient in one of the world's most species-rich ecosystems, the Atlantic Forest, representing 2,700 km of tropical rainforest along almost 20° of latitude in eastern Brazil. Our results are consistent with an ecosystem-wide pattern in communities' structure, with relatively high species turnover but functionally analogous leaf-litter ant communities' organization. Our results suggest directional shifts in the morphological space along the environmental gradient from overdispersed to aggregated (from North to South), suggesting that primary productivity and environmental heterogeneity (altitude, temperature and precipitation in the case) determine the distribution of traits and regulate the assembly rules, shaping local leaf-litter ant communities. Contrary to the expected and most common pattern along latitudinal gradients, the Atlantic Forest leaf litter ant communities show an inverse pattern in richness, that is, richer communities in higher than in lower latitudes. The morphological specialization of communities showed more morphologically distinct communities at low latitudes and species redundancy at high latitudes. We claim that an inverse latitudinal gradient in primary productivity and environmental heterogeneity across the Atlantic forest may affect morphological diversity and species richness, enhancing species coexistence mechanisms, and producing thus the observed patterns. We suggest that a functional framework based on flexible enough traits should be pursued to allow comparisons at local, regional and global levels.
Editor: United States: Public Library of Science
Idioma: Inglês

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Ecosystem-wide morphological structure of leaf-litter ant communities along a tropical latitudinal gradient

Silva, Rogério R ; Brandão, Carlos Roberto F Paine, Timothy D.

United States: Public Library of Science

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