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Male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: Consequences of future climate change

Tropical forests sustain many ant species whose mating events often involve conspicuous flying swarms of winged gynes and males. The success of these reproductive flights depends on environmental variables and determines the maintenance of local ant diversity. However, we lack a strong understanding...

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Autores principales: Donoso, David A., Basset, Yves, Shik, Jonathan Z., Forrister, Dale L., Uquillas, Adriana, Salazar-Méndez, Yasmín, Arizala, Stephany, Polanco, Pamela, Beckett, Saul, Dominguez G., Diego, Barrios, Héctor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8970379/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35358265
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266222
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author Donoso, David A.
Basset, Yves
Shik, Jonathan Z.
Forrister, Dale L.
Uquillas, Adriana
Salazar-Méndez, Yasmín
Arizala, Stephany
Polanco, Pamela
Beckett, Saul
Dominguez G., Diego
Barrios, Héctor
author_facet Donoso, David A.
Basset, Yves
Shik, Jonathan Z.
Forrister, Dale L.
Uquillas, Adriana
Salazar-Méndez, Yasmín
Arizala, Stephany
Polanco, Pamela
Beckett, Saul
Dominguez G., Diego
Barrios, Héctor
author_sort Donoso, David A.
collection PubMed
description Tropical forests sustain many ant species whose mating events often involve conspicuous flying swarms of winged gynes and males. The success of these reproductive flights depends on environmental variables and determines the maintenance of local ant diversity. However, we lack a strong understanding of the role of environmental variables in shaping the phenology of these flights. Using a combination of community-level analyses and a time-series model on male abundance, we studied male ant phenology in a seasonally wet lowland rainforest in the Panama Canal. The male flights of 161 ant species, sampled with 10 Malaise traps during 58 consecutive weeks (from August 2014 to September 2015), varied widely in number (mean = 9.8 weeks, median = 4, range = 1 to 58). Those species abundant enough for analysis (n = 97) flew mainly towards the end of the dry season and at the start of the rainy season. While litterfall, rain, temperature, and air humidity explained community composition, the time-series model estimators elucidated more complex patterns of reproductive investment across the entire year. For example, male abundance increased in weeks when maximum daily temperature increased and in wet weeks during the dry season. On the contrary, male abundance decreased in periods when rain receded (e.g., at the start of the dry season), in periods when rain fell daily (e.g., right after the beginning of the wet season), or when there was an increase in the short-term rate of litterfall (e.g., at the end of the dry season). Together, these results suggest that the BCI ant community is adapted to the dry/wet transition as the best timing of reproductive investment. We hypothesize that current climate change scenarios for tropical regions with higher average temperature, but lower rainfall, may generate phenological mismatches between reproductive flights and the adequate conditions needed for a successful start of the colony.
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spelling pubmed-89703792022-04-01 Male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: Consequences of future climate change Donoso, David A. Basset, Yves Shik, Jonathan Z. Forrister, Dale L. Uquillas, Adriana Salazar-Méndez, Yasmín Arizala, Stephany Polanco, Pamela Beckett, Saul Dominguez G., Diego Barrios, Héctor PLoS One Research Article Tropical forests sustain many ant species whose mating events often involve conspicuous flying swarms of winged gynes and males. The success of these reproductive flights depends on environmental variables and determines the maintenance of local ant diversity. However, we lack a strong understanding of the role of environmental variables in shaping the phenology of these flights. Using a combination of community-level analyses and a time-series model on male abundance, we studied male ant phenology in a seasonally wet lowland rainforest in the Panama Canal. The male flights of 161 ant species, sampled with 10 Malaise traps during 58 consecutive weeks (from August 2014 to September 2015), varied widely in number (mean = 9.8 weeks, median = 4, range = 1 to 58). Those species abundant enough for analysis (n = 97) flew mainly towards the end of the dry season and at the start of the rainy season. While litterfall, rain, temperature, and air humidity explained community composition, the time-series model estimators elucidated more complex patterns of reproductive investment across the entire year. For example, male abundance increased in weeks when maximum daily temperature increased and in wet weeks during the dry season. On the contrary, male abundance decreased in periods when rain receded (e.g., at the start of the dry season), in periods when rain fell daily (e.g., right after the beginning of the wet season), or when there was an increase in the short-term rate of litterfall (e.g., at the end of the dry season). Together, these results suggest that the BCI ant community is adapted to the dry/wet transition as the best timing of reproductive investment. We hypothesize that current climate change scenarios for tropical regions with higher average temperature, but lower rainfall, may generate phenological mismatches between reproductive flights and the adequate conditions needed for a successful start of the colony. Public Library of Science 2022-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8970379/ /pubmed/35358265 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266222 Text en © 2022 Donoso et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Donoso, David A.
Basset, Yves
Shik, Jonathan Z.
Forrister, Dale L.
Uquillas, Adriana
Salazar-Méndez, Yasmín
Arizala, Stephany
Polanco, Pamela
Beckett, Saul
Dominguez G., Diego
Barrios, Héctor
Male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: Consequences of future climate change
title Male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: Consequences of future climate change
title_full Male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: Consequences of future climate change
title_fullStr Male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: Consequences of future climate change
title_full_unstemmed Male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: Consequences of future climate change
title_short Male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: Consequences of future climate change
title_sort male ant reproductive investment in a seasonal wet tropical forest: consequences of future climate change
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8970379/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35358265
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266222
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