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Reducing Native Ant Abundance Decreases Predation Rates in Midwestern Grasslands

Diverse and robust predator communities are important for effective prey suppression in natural and managed communities. Ants are ubiquitous components of terrestrial systems but their contributions to natural prey suppression is relatively understudied in temperate regions. Growing evidence suggest...

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Autores principales: Wills, B D, Kim, T N, Fox, A F, Gratton, C, Landis, D A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6894410/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31713603
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvz127
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author Wills, B D
Kim, T N
Fox, A F
Gratton, C
Landis, D A
author_facet Wills, B D
Kim, T N
Fox, A F
Gratton, C
Landis, D A
author_sort Wills, B D
collection PubMed
description Diverse and robust predator communities are important for effective prey suppression in natural and managed communities. Ants are ubiquitous components of terrestrial systems but their contributions to natural prey suppression is relatively understudied in temperate regions. Growing evidence suggests that ants can play a significant role in the removal of insect prey within grasslands, but their impact is difficult to separate from that of nonant predators. To test how ants may contribute to prey suppression in grasslands, we used poison baits (with physical exclosures) to selectively reduce the ant population in common garden settings, then tracked ant and nonant ground predator abundance and diversity, and removal of sentinel egg prey for 7 wk. We found that poison baits reduced ant abundance without a significant negative impact on abundance of nonant ground predators, and that a reduction in ant abundance decreased the proportion of sentinel prey eggs removed. Even a modest decrease (~20%) in abundance of several ant species, including the numerically dominant Lasius neoniger Emery (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), significantly reduced sentinel prey removal rates. Our results suggest that ants disproportionately contribute to ground-based predation of arthropod prey in grasslands. Changes in the amount of grasslands on the landscape and its management may have important implications for ant prevalence and natural prey suppression services in agricultural landscapes.
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spelling pubmed-68944102019-12-10 Reducing Native Ant Abundance Decreases Predation Rates in Midwestern Grasslands Wills, B D Kim, T N Fox, A F Gratton, C Landis, D A Environ Entomol Community and Ecosystem Ecology Diverse and robust predator communities are important for effective prey suppression in natural and managed communities. Ants are ubiquitous components of terrestrial systems but their contributions to natural prey suppression is relatively understudied in temperate regions. Growing evidence suggests that ants can play a significant role in the removal of insect prey within grasslands, but their impact is difficult to separate from that of nonant predators. To test how ants may contribute to prey suppression in grasslands, we used poison baits (with physical exclosures) to selectively reduce the ant population in common garden settings, then tracked ant and nonant ground predator abundance and diversity, and removal of sentinel egg prey for 7 wk. We found that poison baits reduced ant abundance without a significant negative impact on abundance of nonant ground predators, and that a reduction in ant abundance decreased the proportion of sentinel prey eggs removed. Even a modest decrease (~20%) in abundance of several ant species, including the numerically dominant Lasius neoniger Emery (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), significantly reduced sentinel prey removal rates. Our results suggest that ants disproportionately contribute to ground-based predation of arthropod prey in grasslands. Changes in the amount of grasslands on the landscape and its management may have important implications for ant prevalence and natural prey suppression services in agricultural landscapes. Oxford University Press 2019-12 2019-11-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6894410/ /pubmed/31713603 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvz127 Text en © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
spellingShingle Community and Ecosystem Ecology
Wills, B D
Kim, T N
Fox, A F
Gratton, C
Landis, D A
Reducing Native Ant Abundance Decreases Predation Rates in Midwestern Grasslands
title Reducing Native Ant Abundance Decreases Predation Rates in Midwestern Grasslands
title_full Reducing Native Ant Abundance Decreases Predation Rates in Midwestern Grasslands
title_fullStr Reducing Native Ant Abundance Decreases Predation Rates in Midwestern Grasslands
title_full_unstemmed Reducing Native Ant Abundance Decreases Predation Rates in Midwestern Grasslands
title_short Reducing Native Ant Abundance Decreases Predation Rates in Midwestern Grasslands
title_sort reducing native ant abundance decreases predation rates in midwestern grasslands
topic Community and Ecosystem Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6894410/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31713603
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvz127
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