Click here to sign in with or
Forget Password?
Learn more
share this!
52
Twit
Share
Email
April 10, 2024
This article has been reviewed according to Science X’s editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content’s credibility:
fact-checked
peer-reviewed publication
trusted source
proofread
by Yvaine Ye, University of Colorado at Boulder
Over the past 60 years, climate change has forced certain ant species, unable to tolerate higher temperatures, out of their original habitats in Gregory Canyon near Boulder, Colorado, according to a new research published April 9 in the journal Ecology.
The resulting biodiversity change could potentially alter local ecosystems, according to first author Anna Paraskevopoulos, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Like all insects, ants are ectothermic, meaning their body temperature, metabolism and other bodily functions depend on the environment’s temperature. As a result, ants are sensitive to temperature fluctuations, making them a good marker to study the impact climate change has on ecosystems.
More than six decades ago, CU Boulder entomologist Robert Gregg and his student John Browne surveyed the ant populations in Gregory Canyon. After reading their study, Paraskevopoulos and her team set off to investigate whether the ant community had changed since. The researchers sampled the same survey sites on roughly the same dates between 2021 and 2022 as Browne and Gregg did in 1957 and 1958. The team collected hundreds of ant samples from different parts of Gregory Canyon, each with its own unique environment. For example, the canyon’s north-facing slope is a forest with cool temperatures, dominated by pine and fir trees. The south-facing slope is primarily shrubland, while streams and ditches shape the canyon bottom area.
While the city of Boulder has expanded greatly since the original study, Gregory Canyon has remained a natural environment and largely unaffected by land-use change.
“This gave us an opportunity to study the isolated impacts of climate change. In many other studies, the effect of land use and climate change are often entangled,” Paraskevopoulos said.
While she and her team discovered some ant species that were not recorded previously in the canyon, several other ant species had expanded their habitats and dominated the sites.
The team found while the total number of ant species in Gregory Canyon had increased from what was recorded in the earlier paper, several species had expanded their habitats to a broader region and now dominated the sites. At the same time, some other ants Browne and Gregg observed had become less widespread or were even undetected.
“Across the different environments and habitats in the canyon, we’re seeing the composition of ant species becoming more similar,” said Julian Resasco, the paper’s senior author and an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
The team said 12 ant species have become hard to find compared with six decades ago. Ant species that foraged across a broader range of temperatures are now more widespread, while species that foraged across a narrower range of temperatures have become rare, potentially because they are more sensitive to temperature changes, or are facing increased competition from other ant species that managed to expand their habitats.
Despite their tiny size, ants are essential ecosystem engineers. They supply soil with air through making tunnels and chambers underground, and accelerate the decomposition of dead plants and animals. Different ant species may play unique roles in the ecosystem, such as dispersing certain types of seeds or preying on specific bugs.
“If the ecosystem has only a single type of ant, it could mean that the animal is only contributing to ecosystem functioning in one way, potentially reducing ecosystem stability,” Paraskevopoulos said.
It remains unclear how changes in ant populations in Gregory Canyon have affected the local ecosystem. But when a species disappears, it affects other organisms that rely on them for food, pollination or pest control, Paraskevopoulos said.
The finding illustrates that changes in ant biodiversity could be happening all around the world in both urban and wild spaces as a result of climate change. Globally, insect populations and diversity are rapidly declining, and the study adds another piece of evidence to what many scientists call an ongoing “insect apocalypse.”
An analysis across 16 studies shows that insect populations have declined by 45% in the last four decades. In North America, the monarch butterfly population has fallen by 90% in the last 20 years. In Colorado, one in five native bumblebees is at risk.
“In response to climate change, species are changing the ranges where they’re occurring. Some of them are spreading and becoming winners, while others are crashing and becoming losers. This work helps us understand how those communities reshuffle, which could have implications on how ecosystems function,” Resasco said.
More information: Anna W. Paraskevopoulos et al, Temperature‐driven homogenization of an ant community over 60 years in a montane ecosystem, Ecology (2024). DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4302
Journal information: Ecology
Journal information: Ecology
Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder
Explore further
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Feedback to editors
6 hours ago
0
Apr 11, 2024
0
Apr 11, 2024
0
Apr 10, 2024
1
Apr 10, 2024
1
2 hours ago
2 hours ago
3 hours ago
3 hours ago
3 hours ago
4 hours ago
4 hours ago
4 hours ago
5 hours ago
5 hours ago
2 hours ago
Apr 10, 2024
Apr 9, 2024
Mar 30, 2024
Mar 27, 2024
Mar 20, 2024
More from Biology and Medical
Mar 14, 2022
Jan 16, 2023
Aug 21, 2023
Jan 24, 2024
Sep 23, 2023
Jun 14, 2023
2 hours ago
3 hours ago
3 hours ago
11 hours ago
5 hours ago
5 hours ago
Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form. For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines).
Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request
Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors.
Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.
Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient’s address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Phys.org in any form.
Get weekly and/or daily updates delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and we’ll never share your details to third parties.
More information Privacy policy
We keep our content available to everyone. Consider supporting Science X’s mission by getting a premium account.
Medical research advances and health news
The latest engineering, electronics and technology advances
The most comprehensive sci-tech news coverage on the web