Dimensions: Collaborative: The climate cascade: functional and evolutionary consequences of climatic change on species, trait, and genetic diversity in a temperate ant community

地球的气候正在迅速变化，生物多样性也在随之变化：物种在局部、区域或全球范围内进化或消失。这项研究的重点是森林蚂蚁的种群和物种是否能够适应气候变化，避免局部灭绝。森林蚂蚁处理土壤，循环营养，散布许多林下植物的种子，并对气温变化做出快速反应。常见蚂蚁物种的样本将从美国东部的森林中采集。DNA测序和系统发育学将用于重建它们的进化史，并揭示可能因气候变化而进化的特定基因。还将对从马萨诸塞州和北卡罗来纳州的实验场收集的蚂蚁进行基因测序，这些蚂蚁已经连续升温三年。在受控的实验室实验中，蚂蚁将暴露在气候变化模型预测的高温范围内，并将分析蚂蚁的生理生化反应，这可以为蚂蚁对气温上升的适应性提供线索。这项研究的结果将有助于了解各种生理生化特征可能如何应对气候变化，从而潜在地使关键物种避免灭绝。此外，该研究计划将培训本科生和研究生，并将就气候变化对生物多样性的影响提供公共宣传和教育。针对教师和学生的暑期高中推广计划将得到加强，公民科学家将参与记录气候变化对生物多样性的影响。

Earth's climate is rapidly changing and biodiversity is changing with it: species evolve or disappear locally, regionally, or globally. This research focuses on whether populations and species of forest ants are able to adapt to climate change and avoid local extinction. Forest ants process soil, cycle nutrients, disperse seeds of many understory plants, and respond rapidly to changes in air temperature. Samples of common ant species will be collected from forests throughout the eastern U.S. DNA sequencing and phylogenetics will be used to reconstruct their evolutionary history and to reveal particular genes that may have evolved in response to climate change. Genes will also be sequenced from ants collected from experimental sites in Massachusetts and North Carolina that have been continuously warmed for three years. In controlled laboratory experiments, ants will be exposed to a range of high temperatures predicted by climate change models, and the physiological and biochemical responses of ants will be analyzed, which can provide clues as to the adaptability of ants to increasing temperatures. The results of this research will help to understand how various physiological and biochemical traits are likely to respond to climate change, potentially enabling key species to avoid extinction. Additionally, this research program will train undergraduates and graduate students and will provide public outreach and education on the effects of climate change on biodiversity. Summer high school outreach programs for both teachers and students will be enhanced, and citizen-scientists will be engaged in documenting the effects of climate change on biodiversity.