Controls of ant diversity in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the southern Appalachians

Sanders, Nathan

"Ant diversity declines with elevation, possibly because of declines in temperature. The diversity of rare ant species tracked the overall pattern of diversity. There aren't any locations at which many rare species occur. Instead, rare species occur in areas where there are many species. The rare species found by the PI (e.g,. Cryptopone gilva, Pyramica ornata, Proceratium pergandei), represented a mix of different life histories. They found strong support for the effects of temperature on seasonal patterns of diversity especially at low elevation sites, using material from ATBI pitfall traps, and the patterns seem to change with elevation because of a variation in the influence of temperature with elevation. PI found that reproductive flights occurred throughout the year, but were concentrated in the beginning of summer and in early fall. Closely related species tended to be more likely than expected by chance to fly at similar times, perhaps due to phylogenetic constraints on life history evolution. Overall patterns in nuptial flights among species and the timing of flights for individual species varied with elevation, but did not vary strongly among years. The number of species per meter square plot varies tremendously from place to place in the park. At some sites, the PI found no ants. At others, he find 13 species. At the site level, he found between 2 and 22 species. Such high biodiversity per square meter and per 0.25 ha plot rivals some the diversity in some tropical ecosystems. The VERY preliminary results indicate that light availability (really temperature) interacts with resource availability (food and potentially nest sites) to limit diversity and worker activity (addressed by Lessard in GRSM-00477). To the knowledge of the PI, this is the first broad-scale experiment aimed at elucidating the mechanisms controlling ant diversity."

Controls of ant diversity in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the southern Appalachians

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