Increased temperatures could heighten vulnerability of an ant-plant mutualism.

IF 2.3 2区 环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY
Talita Câmara, Nathália Thais Cavalcante, Hiram Marinho Falcão, Esther Santana, Giselle Dos Santos Silva Teixeira, Xavier Arnan
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Mutualisms may be more or less sensitive to environmental conditions depending on the diversity and responses of the species involved. Ants frequently form mutualistic associations with plants bearing extrafloral nectaries (EFNs): the ants protect the plants from herbivores and receive food resources (i.e., nectar) in return. As ectotherms, ants are strongly influenced by temperature, and temperature shifts can affect ant-plant interactions in ways that often depend on species functional traits. In this study, we explored the influence of EFN size and leaf surface temperature on ant-plant interactions in a Caatinga dry forest in Brazil. We observed the ants visiting 14 EFN-bearing plant species at different times of day over 12 sampling months; we also measured leaf surface temperatures during these periods. We next quantified EFN size for 68 individuals from the 14 plant species. The observational data were used to characterize the heat tolerance of the attendant ant species (i.e., based on levels of foraging activity). We then evaluated the mutualism's degree of functional resilience using two indices: functional redundancy (i.e., the number of ant species interacting with a given plant species) and thermal response diversity (i.e., variability in the heat tolerance of the ant species interacting with a given plant species). We found that leaf surface temperature, but not EFN size, had an influence on mutualism functional resilience. As temperatures increased, both functional redundancy and thermal response diversity decreased. This result implies that warmer global temperatures could heighten the vulnerability of facultative ant-plant mutualisms, regardless of plant traits.

气温升高可能会加剧反植物共生的脆弱性。
共生关系可能对环境条件或多或少敏感,这取决于所涉及物种的多样性和反应。蚂蚁经常与具有花外蜜腺(efn)的植物形成互惠关系:蚂蚁保护植物免受食草动物的侵害,并获得食物资源(即花蜜)作为回报。作为变温动物,蚂蚁受到温度的强烈影响,温度的变化会以通常取决于物种功能特征的方式影响蚂蚁与植物的相互作用。在这项研究中,我们探讨了EFN大小和叶表面温度对巴西Caatinga干旱森林中蚂蚁与植物相互作用的影响。在12个采样月的时间里,我们观察到蚂蚁在一天中的不同时间访问14种efn植物;我们还测量了这些时期的叶片表面温度。接下来,我们对来自14种植物的68个个体的EFN大小进行了量化。观测数据用于表征伴随蚂蚁物种的耐热性(即基于觅食活动水平)。然后,我们使用两个指标来评估互惠共生的功能恢复程度:功能冗余(即与给定植物物种相互作用的蚂蚁物种数量)和热响应多样性(即与给定植物物种相互作用的蚂蚁物种的耐热性变异性)。结果表明,叶片表面温度对互共生功能恢复力有影响,而EFN大小对互共生功能恢复力无影响。随着温度的升高,功能冗余和热响应多样性都降低。这一结果表明,无论植物性状如何,全球变暖都可能增加兼性抗植物共生的脆弱性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Oecologia
Oecologia 环境科学-生态学
CiteScore
5.10
自引率
0.00%
发文量
192
审稿时长
5.3 months
期刊介绍: Oecologia publishes innovative ecological research of international interest. We seek reviews, advances in methodology, and original contributions, emphasizing the following areas: Population ecology, Plant-microbe-animal interactions, Ecosystem ecology, Community ecology, Global change ecology, Conservation ecology, Behavioral ecology and Physiological Ecology. In general, studies that are purely descriptive, mathematical, documentary, and/or natural history will not be considered.
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