Data from: Climate mediates the effects of disturbance on ant assemblage structure
Gibb, Heloise1; Sanders, Nathan J.2; Dunn, Robert R.3; Watson, Simon1; Photakis, Manoli1; Abril, Silvia4; Andersen, Alan N.5; Angulo, Elena6; Armbrecht, Inge7; Arnan, Xavier8; Baccaro, Fabricio B.9; Bishop, Tom R.10; Boulay, Raphael11; Castracani, Cristina12; Del Toro, Israel13; Delsinne, Thibaut14; Diaz, Mireia4; Donoso, David A.15; Enríquez, Martha L.4; Fayle, Tom M.16; Feener, Donald H.17; Fitzpatrick, Matthew C.18; Gómez, Crisanto4; Grasso, Donato A.12; Groc, Sarah19; Heterick, Brian20; Hoffmann, Benjamin D.5; Lach, Lori21; Lattke, John22; Leponce, Maurice14; Lessard, Jean-Philippe23; Longino, John17; Lucky, Andrea24; Majer, Jonathan20; Menke, Sean B.25; Mezger, Dirk26; Mori, Alessandra12; Munyai, Thinandavha C.27; Paknia, Omid28; Pearce-Duvet, Jessica17; Pfeiffer, Martin29; Philpott, Stacy M.10; de Souza, Jorge L. P.30; Tista, Melanie31; Vasconcelos, Heraldo L.19; Vonshak, Merav32; Parr, Catherine L.10; Lessard, J.-P.33; Enriquez, M. L.4; Gomez, C.4
Published Apr 23, 2015
on Dryad.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.r36n0
Data files
Apr 23, 2015 version files
1.74 MB
Abstract
Many studies have focused on the impacts of climate change on biological assemblages, yet little is known about how climate interacts with other major anthropogenic influences on biodiversity, such as habitat disturbance. Using a unique global database of 1128 local ant assemblages, we examined whether climate mediates the effects of habitat disturbance on assemblage structure at a global scale. Species richness and evenness were associated positively with temperature, and negatively with disturbance. However, the interaction among temperature, precipitation and disturbance shaped species richness and evenness. The effect was manifested through a failure of species richness to increase substantially with temperature in transformed habitats at low precipitation. At low precipitation levels, evenness increased with temperature in undisturbed sites, peaked at medium temperatures in disturbed sites and remained low in transformed sites. In warmer climates with lower rainfall, the effects of increasing disturbance on species richness and evenness were akin to decreases in temperature of up to 9°C. Anthropogenic disturbance and ongoing climate change may interact in complicated ways to shape the structure of assemblages, with hot, arid environments likely to be at greatest risk.
Ant assemblage species richness and PIE
This data file includes details of species richness and PIE from pitfall-trapped ant assemblages across the globe. The data includes the following information for 1128 assemblages: Locality_ID - A unique code for each locality; Source - Details of reference source for each dataset; Cluster - Geographic cluster used as a random factor in analyses; Latitude - Latitude provided by authors; Longitude - Longitude provided by authors; Mean annual temperature - Derived from WorldClim; Total annual precipitation - Derived from WorldClim; Temperature range - Derived from WorldClim; Disturbance - Disturbance described by authors; Hemisphere - Derived from Latitude; Continent - Continent provided by authors; Pitfall days - Number of pitfalls multiplied by trapping days; Transect length - Distance from first to last trap in transect; Species richness - Total number of species collected; PIE - Probability of Interspecific Encounter, a measure of species evenness. Further details are provided in the paper.
Data appendix.xlsx