Cross-Site: Within- and Across-site Variation in Ant Community Structure and Ecosystem Functions at Three Semiarid LTER Sites

跨站点：三个半干旱 LTER 站点蚂蚁群落结构和生态系统功能的站点内和跨站点变化

• 批准号: 9527111
• 负责人: John Wiens
• 金额: $ 20.98万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1995
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1995-10-01 至 1999-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9527111&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Cross; Site; Within; Across; site

This research will employ cross-site and within-site comparisons using three LTER sites to extend and enrich our knowledge of biodiversity and its dynamics at these sites and establish a baseline for understanding the long-term dynamics of a critical and sensitive component of these ecosystems. To answer this question they will document how species and communities of ground-dwelling ants respond to local and regional gradients in vegetation and land-use between the Central Plains site (Colorado shortgrass steppe), the Sevilleta site (transitional between grassland and Chihuahuan Desert), and the Jornada site (Chihuahuan Desert). The work focuses on ground-dwelling ants because they are easily sampled and observed, are abundant and diverse, are characterized by strong behavioral and competitive interactions, are sensitive to both small-scale and large-scale environmental variations, and may play a major role in the movement of materials in arid and semiarid ecosystems. The sites represent a gradient in temperature, precipitation, vegetation, and biogeography. Within each site, ant communities and functional roles will be compared in grass-dominated and shrub- dominated vegetation and in locations differing in grazing intensity. Observations at nest sites of foraging individuals and of removal of seeds and mealworms from food stations will be used to document how the relative magnitude of material flow generated by ants of different functional groups differs among habitats within a site and how these differences are affected by factors operating at the regional scale.

这项研究将使用三个卢比的位点采用跨站点和现场比较，以扩展和丰富我们对这些地点的生物多样性及其动态的了解，并建立一个基线，以理解这些生态系统的关键和敏感组成部分的长期动态。 为了回答这个问题，他们将记录地面蚂蚁的物种和社区如何应对植被和土地利用中的地方和区域梯度之间的反应，塞维利塔遗址（草地和奇瓦瓦州沙漠之间的过渡）和乔纳达（Jornada）遗址（奇瓦瓦州沙漠）。 这项工作的重点是地面蚂蚁，因为它们很容易被采样和观察，丰富而多样，其特征是强烈的行为和竞争性相互作用，对小规模和大规模的环境变化都很敏感，并且可能在材料运动中在干旱和半干旱生态系统中的运动中起主要作用。 这些地点代表温度，降水，植被和生物地理学的梯度。 在每个地点中，将在草的主导和灌木丛中的植被以及放牧强度不同的位置进行比较。 在觅食个体和从食物站中去除种子和粉虫去除的巢穴的观察将用于记录不同官能团的蚂蚁在站点内部栖息地之间产生的材料流的相对大小，以及这些差异如何受到在区域尺度上运行的因素的影响。