ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8023-3490
Current Organisation
Lingnan University
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2021
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 29-06-2022
Abstract: The assumption that differences in species' traits reflect their different niches has long influenced how ecologists infer processes from assemblage patterns. For instance, many assess the importance of environmental filtering versus classical limiting-similarity competition in driving biological invasions by examining whether invaders’ traits are similar or dissimilar to those of residents, respectively. However, mounting evidence suggests that hierarchical differences between species' trait values can distinguish their competitive abilities (e.g. for the same resource) instead of their niches. Whether such trait-mediated hierarchical competition explains invasions and structures assemblages is less explored. We integrate morphological, dietary, physiological and behavioural trait analyses to test whether environmental filtering, limiting-similarity competition or hierarchical competition explain invasions by fire ants on ant assemblages. We detect both competition mechanisms invasion success is not only explained by limiting similarity in body size and thermal tolerance (presumably allowing the invader to exploit different niches from residents), but also by the invader's superior position in trait hierarchies reflecting competition for common trophic resources. We find that the two mechanisms generate complex assemblage-level functional ersity patterns—overdispersion in some traits, clustering in others—suggesting their effects are likely missed by analyses restricted to a few traits and composite trait ersity measures.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-05-2023
Abstract: Early naturalists such as Humboldt observed that changes in topography and anthropogenic disturbances influenced vegetation structure and the composition of animal communities. This holistic view of community assembly continues to shape conservation and restoration strategies in an era of landscape degradation and bio ersity loss. Today, remote sensing affords ecologists the tools for obtaining rapid and precise measures of topography, disturbance history and vegetation structure. Nonetheless, the capacity of such measures to predict the structure of erse and functionally important insect communities has not been fully explored. We s led ground‐dwelling ant assemblages with pitfall traps along a successional gradient (15 grasslands, 21 shrublands and 44 forests) in subtropical Asia, and measured the taxonomic (TD) and functional ersity (FD). We used airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and aerial photography—to measure topography, anthropogenic‐fire history and vegetation structure at each site. Using structural equation models, we tested the hypothesis that vegetation structure mediated the effects of topography and anthropogenic‐fire history on ant assemblage TD and FD, with stronger effects on the latter. We found that low elevation and anthropogenic‐fire history promoted ant TD, and by mediating vegetation structure, these factors further controlled ant FD. Specifically, assemblages of ant species occupying more similar niches—as indicated by their lower FD—were found in secondary forests that had more structurally homogeneous vegetation. These sites also had low insolation and high water moisture content, and were not recently burned as revealed by LiDAR‐derived metrics and aerial images. Furthermore, remotely sensed vegetation structures were closely associated with in idual ant traits, such as body size and eye length, which reflect species' preferences for habitat structure. Synthesis . Our study uncovers the interactive effects of topography, disturbance history and vegetation structure in determining the TD and FD of ant assemblages in subtropical landscapes. Moreover, it demonstrates that remote sensed data can be leveraged to efficiently elucidate the complex effects of environmental change and disturbances on vegetation structure and consequently insect bio ersity, representing ecological proxies to refine ground investigation plans and support appropriate conservation and restoration measures for degraded landscapes.
No related grants have been discovered for Roger H. Lee.