Ants are the major agents of resource removal from tropical rainforests.
Ants are the major agents of resource removal from tropical rainforests.
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DOI：
10.1111/1365-2656.12728
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发表时间：
2018-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Parr CL
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Griffiths HM;Ashton LA;Walker AE;Hasan F;Evans TA;Eggleton P;Parr CL
蚂蚁种类繁多且数量众多，尤其是在热带生态系统中。它们经常被认为是关键生态过程的推动者，但与其他生物体相比，它们的精确贡献很少被量化。通过从森林地面获取食物资源并随后运输到巢穴，蚂蚁在雨林养分的重新分配中发挥着重要作用。这是一个重要的生态系统过程，也是较高营养层、分解者和初级生产者之间的关键能量联系。我们使用碳水化合物、蛋白质和种子诱饵的去除作为代理来量化蚂蚁、其他无脊椎动物和脊椎动物对森林地面营养物质重新分配的贡献，并确定蚂蚁、其他无脊椎动物和脊椎动物群体之间的功能冗余程度。通过大规模的现场操纵实验，我们抑制了c.的蚂蚁。马来西亚沙巴州低地热带雨林中占地 1 公顷的地块。通过结合处理和对照地块以及排除脊椎动物的笼子，我们为以下人员提供了食物资源：（i）整个觅食群落，（ii）仅无脊椎动物，（iii）仅非蚂蚁无脊椎动物。这使我们能够将诱饵去除分为脊椎动物、非蚂蚁无脊椎动物和蚂蚁的诱饵去除。此外，我们还研究了非蚂蚁无脊椎动物群落对蚂蚁排斥的反应。当整个觅食群落都能获得食物资源时，我们发现蚂蚁清除了总饵料的 52%，而脊椎动物和非蚂蚁无脊椎动物则清除了剩余的 48%。在排除脊椎动物的情况下，蚂蚁清除了 61% 的无脊椎动物介导的诱饵，而所有其他无脊椎动物则清除了剩余的 39%。脊椎动物仅清除了 24% 的诱饵，无脊椎动物（包括蚂蚁）共同清除了剩余的 76%。当排除蚂蚁和脊椎动物时，饵料去除率没有补偿，表明这些组之间的功能冗余度较低。这项研究首次量化了蚂蚁对雨林地面食物资源的清除以及养分重新分配的贡献。我们证明蚂蚁在这个角色上具有独特的功能，因为没有其他生物体在它们不在的情况下补偿以维持诱饵去除率。因此，我们加强了越来越多的证据证明蚂蚁是生态系统工程师，并为蚂蚁在维持关键生态系统过程中的作用提供了新的见解。通过这种方式，我们进一步加深了对热带雨林生态系统功能的基本了解。在热带雨林中，蚂蚁在生态上占主导地位，占动物总生物量的25%；然而，与其他生物相比，蚂蚁对生态系统过程的贡献尚未量化。作者表明，蚂蚁对于生态系统中营养物质的重新分配至关重要，而这一功能是其他群体无法弥补的。
Ants are diverse and abundant, especially in tropical ecosystems. They are often cited as the agents of key ecological processes, but their precise contributions compared with other organisms have rarely been quantified. Through the removal of food resources from the forest floor and subsequent transport to nests, ants play an important role in the redistribution of nutrients in rainforests. This is an essential ecosystem process and a key energetic link between higher trophic levels, decomposers and primary producers. We used the removal of carbohydrate, protein and seed baits as a proxy to quantify the contribution that ants, other invertebrates and vertebrates make to the redistribution of nutrients around the forest floor, and determined to what extent there is functional redundancy across ants, other invertebrate and vertebrate groups. Using a large‐scale, field‐based manipulation experiment, we suppressed ants from c. 1 ha plots in a lowland tropical rainforest in Sabah, Malaysia. Using a combination of treatment and control plots, and cages to exclude vertebrates, we made food resources available to: (i) the whole foraging community, (ii) only invertebrates and (iii) only non‐ant invertebrates. This allowed us to partition bait removal into that taken by vertebrates, non‐ant invertebrates and ants. Additionally, we examined how the non‐ant invertebrate community responded to ant exclusion. When the whole foraging community had access to food resources, we found that ants were responsible for 52% of total bait removal whilst vertebrates and non‐ant invertebrates removed the remaining 48%. Where vertebrates were excluded, ants carried out 61% of invertebrate‐mediated bait removal, with all other invertebrates removing the remaining 39%. Vertebrates were responsible for just 24% of bait removal and invertebrates (including ants) collectively removed the remaining 76%. There was no compensation in bait removal rate when ants and vertebrates were excluded, indicating low functional redundancy between these groups. This study is the first to quantify the contribution of ants to the removal of food resources from rainforest floors and thus nutrient redistribution. We demonstrate that ants are functionally unique in this role because no other organisms compensated to maintain bait removal rate in their absence. As such, we strengthen a growing body of evidence establishing ants as ecosystem engineers, and provide new insights into the role of ants in maintaining key ecosystem processes. In this way, we further our basic understanding of the functioning of tropical rainforest ecosystems. In tropical rainforest, ants are ecologically dominant, and are up to 25% of the total animal biomass; however, the contribution of ants compared with other organisms to ecosystem processes has yet to be quantified. The authors show that ants are essential in redistributing nutrients around in ecosystems, and this function cannot be compensated for by other groups.
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影响因子：
2.7
作者：
Gove, Aaron D.;Majer, Jonathan D.;Dunn, Robert R.
通讯作者：
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影响因子：
3.8
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影响因子：
2.7
作者：
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DOI：
10.1146/annurev.energy.28.050302.105532
发表时间：
2003-01-01
影响因子：
16.4
作者：
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通讯作者：
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影响因子：
4.8
作者：
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通讯作者：
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