Urban habitat complexity affects species richness but not environmental filtering of morphologically-diverse ants

A Ossola; MA Nash; FJ Christie; AK Hahs; SJ Livesley

Journal article

Urban habitat complexity affects species richness but not environmental filtering of morphologically-diverse ants

A Ossola, MA Nash, FJ Christie, AK Hahs, SJ Livesley

Peerj | PEERJ INC | Published : 2015

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.1356

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Abstract

Habitat complexity is a major determinant of structure and diversity of ant assemblages. Following the size-grain hypothesis, smaller ant species are likely to be advantaged in more complex habitats compared to larger species.Habitat complexity can act as an environmental filter based on species size and morphological traits, therefore affecting the overall structure and diversity of ant assemblages. In natural and semi-natural ecosystems, habitat complexity is principally regulated by ecological successions or disturbance such as fire and grazing. Urban ecosystems provide an opportunity to test relationships between habitat, ant assemblage structure and ant traits using novel combinations o..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Alessandro Ossola Author

Amy Hahs Author

Stephen Livesley Author

Related Projects (2)

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ECOSYSTEMS SERVICES FROM LARGE URBAN GREEN SPACES - THE BIODIVERSITY AND CARBON BENEFIT OF URBAN GOLF COURSES

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Funding Acknowledgements

This project received funds from the Australian Research Council (ARC LP 110100686), the Australian Centre for Urban Ecology (ARCUE) and the Australian Golf Course Superintendent Association (AGCSA). AO is supported by MIFRS, MIRS and the Frank Keenan Fund Trust scholarships. AKH is supported by the Baker Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.