Cargando…

Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants

Understanding how species assemble into communities is a key goal in ecology. However, assembly rules are rarely tested experimentally, and their ability to shape real communities is poorly known. We surveyed a diverse community of epiphyte-dwelling ants and found that similar-sized species co-occur...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fayle, Tom M, Eggleton, Paul, Manica, Andrea, Yusah, Kalsum M, Foster, William A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4342770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25622647
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12403
_version_ 1782359317612068864
author Fayle, Tom M
Eggleton, Paul
Manica, Andrea
Yusah, Kalsum M
Foster, William A
author_facet Fayle, Tom M
Eggleton, Paul
Manica, Andrea
Yusah, Kalsum M
Foster, William A
author_sort Fayle, Tom M
collection PubMed
description Understanding how species assemble into communities is a key goal in ecology. However, assembly rules are rarely tested experimentally, and their ability to shape real communities is poorly known. We surveyed a diverse community of epiphyte-dwelling ants and found that similar-sized species co-occurred less often than expected. Laboratory experiments demonstrated that invasion was discouraged by the presence of similarly sized resident species. The size difference for which invasion was less likely was the same as that for which wild species exhibited reduced co-occurrence. Finally we explored whether our experimentally derived assembly rules could simulate realistic communities. Communities simulated using size-based species assembly exhibited diversities closer to wild communities than those simulated using size-independent assembly, with results being sensitive to the combination of rules employed. Hence, species segregation in the wild can be driven by competitive species assembly, and this process is sufficient to generate observed species abundance distributions for tropical epiphyte-dwelling ants.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4342770
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2015
publisher Blackwell Publishing Ltd
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-43427702015-03-04 Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants Fayle, Tom M Eggleton, Paul Manica, Andrea Yusah, Kalsum M Foster, William A Ecol Lett Letters Understanding how species assemble into communities is a key goal in ecology. However, assembly rules are rarely tested experimentally, and their ability to shape real communities is poorly known. We surveyed a diverse community of epiphyte-dwelling ants and found that similar-sized species co-occurred less often than expected. Laboratory experiments demonstrated that invasion was discouraged by the presence of similarly sized resident species. The size difference for which invasion was less likely was the same as that for which wild species exhibited reduced co-occurrence. Finally we explored whether our experimentally derived assembly rules could simulate realistic communities. Communities simulated using size-based species assembly exhibited diversities closer to wild communities than those simulated using size-independent assembly, with results being sensitive to the combination of rules employed. Hence, species segregation in the wild can be driven by competitive species assembly, and this process is sufficient to generate observed species abundance distributions for tropical epiphyte-dwelling ants. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2015-03 2015-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4342770/ /pubmed/25622647 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12403 Text en © 2015 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and CNRS. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Letters
Fayle, Tom M
Eggleton, Paul
Manica, Andrea
Yusah, Kalsum M
Foster, William A
Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants
title Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants
title_full Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants
title_fullStr Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants
title_full_unstemmed Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants
title_short Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants
title_sort experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants
topic Letters
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4342770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25622647
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12403
work_keys_str_mv AT fayletomm experimentallytestingandassessingthepredictivepowerofspeciesassemblyrulesfortropicalcanopyants
AT eggletonpaul experimentallytestingandassessingthepredictivepowerofspeciesassemblyrulesfortropicalcanopyants
AT manicaandrea experimentallytestingandassessingthepredictivepowerofspeciesassemblyrulesfortropicalcanopyants
AT yusahkalsumm experimentallytestingandassessingthepredictivepowerofspeciesassemblyrulesfortropicalcanopyants
AT fosterwilliama experimentallytestingandassessingthepredictivepowerofspeciesassemblyrulesfortropicalcanopyants