Testing multiple hypotheses of community assembly using a tropical insect: Twig-nesting ants in a coffee agroecosystem

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The study of assembly of ecological communities provides information about where organisms are located, when, and why. This knowledge is critical for understanding maintenance of biodiversity and how the distribution of organisms will respond to environmental change. Most studies of drivers of community assembly of tropical organisms are limited to observation of static assemblages because manipulations are impractical or impossible. Further, community assembly studies are generally undertaken in natural ecosystems despite that agricultural areas cover large fractions of land area. This project takes advantage of an easily manipulated arboreal twig-nesting ant community in a coffee agroecosystem to experimentally explore multiple factors influencing community assembly. The main objectives are to examine twig-nesting ant life history traits (e.g. colony size, reproductive and dispersal capabilities, and competitive ability), responses of ant communities to agricultural disturbance, and impacts of environmental change and competition with other ants on nest colonization and colony survival. The work will be conducted in a coffee farm in southern Mexico and will involve surveys and manipulative studies. Specifically, surveys will take place in a field that recently experienced drastic agricultural disturbance (forest canopy cutting), and in an uncut control field. Two large-scale experiments with nest additions and reciprocal transplants will directly compare the influence of multiple factors on colony recruitment and survival.Understanding the factors driving community assembly of ants in coffee agroecosystems will contribute to coffee management and educational goals. Coffee agroecosystems are extremely important from conservation and economic standpoints. Shaded coffee farms provide habitat to threatened tropical diversity and coffee crops provide livelihood to millions. Ants are abundant, important predators that influence resources in tropical agroecosystems. Twig-nesting ants are biological control agents of coffee pests, thus elucidating factors contributing to ant assembly will inform farmer management decisions and contribute to sustainable agricultural production. The project will advance education in independent research for undergraduate and graduate students, and will focus on increasing diversity and representation of women ecologists. The ants collected will enhance museum collections, train students in insect taxonomy and identification, and to contribute to field and online guides for the ants of Mexico.