EAGER-NEON: 20 Year Dynamics of North American Ant Communities: Evaluating the Role of Climate and Biogeochemistry on Ecological Change

蚂蚁是地球上数量最多的昆虫之一。蚂蚁搅动土壤，清除尸体，抑制（有时传播）害虫，它们本身就是我们最有害的害虫之一。蚂蚁是变温动物（即冷血动物），这意味着蚁群的健康和活动在一定程度上取决于天气。反过来，气候是长期观测到的天气，大量证据表明气候正在变化。这项研究通过探索美国各地气候变化如何影响蚂蚁的健康和活动，以及蚂蚁物种的变化如何影响蚂蚁影响的许多物种，解决了生态学中的一项关键任务。这项研究解决了一个普遍存在的问题：要记录生态变化，首先必须对生态系统曾经的方式有详细的历史记录。这样的记录很罕见。这项研究通过重新访问来自美国各地的34个蚂蚁群落填补了这一知识空白，这些群落是大约20年前首次采样的。当时，这些蚂蚁研究代表了这一重要昆虫群体丰富度和多样性的最佳全球快照。第二张高分辨率的快照将生成前所未有的蚂蚁群落的34,20年轨迹。当与最新的气候趋势和生态理论相匹配时，这项工作将描绘出生态群落如何在全国范围内变化的第一张图片。这些数据将使生态学家能够改进对动物如何应对气候变化的预测，并将推动新生的国家生态观测网（National Ecological Observatory Network）开展此类工作。本研究在1994- 1995年间对北美30平方米的34个蚂蚁样地进行了重新采样。这些站点包括或与新兴的NEON网络相匹配。由此产生的蚂蚁丰度和多样性的20年轨迹将用于测试三个理论：热适应（热生态学的主导模型，假设热耐受性跟踪气候平均值和变率）；生物地球化学能力（一种将生物地球化学与磷(P)组织浓度联系起来的新假设，富磷组织增强热耐受性）；物种能量理论（宏观生态学的主导模型，在气候、丰度和多样性之间建立了机制联系）。它在种群规模（即，物种种群在其热耐受性和动态方面是否可预测地变化？）、跨物种（平均物种表现如何变化？）和整个群落（生态系统中蚂蚁活动和丰度的净变化是什么？）上验证了这些假设。这些样本将用地面甲虫陷阱的NEON副捕获物进行校准，以结合历史和未来的群落轨迹。

Ants are one of the most abundant insects on Earth. Ants churn the soil, scavenge the dead, suppress (and sometimes propagate) pests, and are themselves some of our most pernicious pests. Ants are ectotherms (i.e., cold-blooded), which means that the health and activity of an ant colony depends in part on the weather. Climate, in turn, is weather observed over time, and abundance evidence shows that climate is changing. This research addresses a key task in ecology by exploring how changing climate across the U.S. will impact the health and activity of ants and, by extension, how shifts in ant species may impact the many species that ants influence. The research tackles a widespread problem: that to document ecological change one must first have detailed historical records of the way ecosystems once were. Such records are rare. This research fills that knowledge gap by revisiting 34 ant communities from across the United States that were first sampled approximately 20 years ago. At the time, those ant studies represented the best global snapshot of the abundance and diversity of this important insect group. This second, high-resolution snapshot will generate an unprecedented 34, 20-year trajectories of ant communities. When matched to the latest climate trends and ecological theory, the work will paint one of the first pictures of how ecological communities are changing nation-wide. These data will allow ecologists to refine the predictions of how animals respond to climate change, and will jump-start such efforts by the nascent National Ecological Observatory Network. This research resamples 34 ant transects of 30 m2 plots from across North America that were originally sampled in 1994-95. The sites include or are matched to those of the nascent NEON network. The resulting 20-year trajectories of ant abundance and diversity will be used to tests three theories: Thermal Adaptation (the dominant model of thermal ecology which posits that thermal tolerance tracks climate means and variability); Biogeochemical Competence (a new hypothesis that links biogeochemistry to tissue concentrations of phosphorus (P), with P-rich tissue enhancing thermal tolerance); and Species Energy Theory (a dominant model of macroecology that builds mechanistic links between climate, abundance, and diversity). It tests these hypotheses at the population scale (i.e., do populations of species vary predictably in their thermal tolerance and dynamics?), across species (how does the mean species performance vary?), and summed across whole communities (what is the net change in the activity and abundance of ants in an ecosystem?). These samples will be calibrated with NEON by-catch of ground beetle pitfall traps to couple historical with future community trajectories.