How Competition and Parasitism Control Diversity in Ant Communities: Testing a Mechanistic Theory

项目摘要该项目试图发现控制自然生态群落如何组合在一起的一般规则。这些规律的发现对于预测生物入侵的原因和后果、评价生物多样性对生态系统功能的影响、指导退化生态系统的恢复和指导公共环境政策的制定具有巨大的实用价值。我们之所以选择蚂蚁群落进行研究，是因为它们长期以来一直是研究生态过程的模式系统，这些过程控制着物种丰富度、物种组成和物种相对丰度的模式。这个项目的主要目标是开发和测试一种关于当地蚂蚁群落中物种相互作用的综合、机械的理论。这一理论侧重于一系列种间权衡，作为控制蚂蚁群落中物种丰富度、组成和丰度的一般机制。该项目将是开发蚂蚁群落中物种相互作用的全面理论的第一次尝试，该理论整合了对共享资源的竞争和天敌攻击的影响。确定与竞争能力和对天敌的防御相关的一般权衡的方法应该具有广泛的适用性，并导致在对生态群落的一般理解方面取得有效和快速的进展。除了拟议的研究外，该项目的主要教育目标是开始培养同样擅长理论建模和实证分析的新一代社区生态学家。

PROJECT ASTRACTThis project seeks to discover the general rules that govern how natural ecological communities are put together. Discovery of these rules will have immense practical value in predicting the causes and consequences of biological invasions, evaluating the influence of biodiversity in ecosystem functions, directing the restoration of degraded ecosystems, and guiding the development of public environmental policy. We have selected ant communities for study because they have long served as a model system for studying ecological processes that control patterns of species richness, species composition and relative abundance of species. The primary goal of this project is to develop and test an integrative, mechanistic theory of species interactions in local ant communities. This theory focuses on a set of interspecific trade-offs as a general mechanism that controls species richness, composition and abundance in ant communities. The project will be the first attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of species interactions in ant communities that integrates the effects of both competition for shared resources and attack by natural enemies. The approach of identifying generalized trade-offs associated with competitive ability and defense against natural enemies should have broad applicability and lead to efficient and rapid progress toward a general understanding of ecological communities. In addition to the proposed research, the major educational goal of this project is to begin training a new generation of community ecologists who are equally adept at theoretical modeling and empirical analysis.