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

对生态群落集合的研究提供了关于生物体所在位置、时间和原因的信息。这些知识对于理解生物多样性的维持以及生物体的分布将如何应对环境变化至关重要。大多数对热带生物群落聚集的驱动因素的研究仅限于对静态聚集的观察，因为操纵是不切实际的或不可能的。此外，尽管农业区覆盖了很大一部分土地面积，但社区集会研究通常在自然生态系统中进行。该项目利用咖啡农业生态系统中易于操纵的树生树枝筑巢蚂蚁群落的优势，实验性地探索影响群落组装的多种因素。主要目的是研究树枝巢蚂蚁的生活史特征(如群体大小、繁殖和扩散能力、竞争能力)，蚂蚁群落对农业干扰的反应，以及环境变化和与其他蚂蚁的竞争对蚁穴定居和群体生存的影响。这项工作将在墨西哥南部的一个咖啡农场进行，涉及调查和操纵研究。具体地说，调查将在最近经历严重农业干扰(林冠砍伐)的田地和未砍伐的对照田地进行。两个大规模的增加巢穴和相互移植的实验将直接比较多种因素对群体招募和存活的影响。了解推动咖啡农业生态系统中蚂蚁群落聚集的因素将有助于咖啡管理和教育目标。从保护和经济的角度来看，咖啡农业生态系统极其重要。树荫下的咖啡农场为受到威胁的热带多样性提供了栖息地，咖啡作物为数百万人提供了生计。蚂蚁是影响热带农业生态系统资源的重要捕食者。枝巢蚂蚁是咖啡害虫的生防剂，因此，阐明蚂蚁聚集的因素将为农民的管理决策提供依据，并有助于可持续农业生产。该项目将促进本科生和研究生的独立研究教育，并将侧重于增加女性生态学家的多样性和代表性。收集到的蚂蚁将加强博物馆收藏，培训学生进行昆虫分类和鉴定，并为墨西哥蚂蚁的野外和在线指南做出贡献。

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.