Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability

The threat of anthropogenic climate change has seen a renewed focus on understanding contemporary patterns of species distribution. This is especially the case for the biota of tropical mountains, because tropical species often have particularly narrow elevational ranges and there are high levels of...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Nowrouzi, Somayeh, Andersen, Alan N., Macfadyen, Sarina, Staunton, Kyran M., VanDerWal, Jeremy, Robson, Simon K. A.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4830544/

id	pubmed-4830544
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-48305442016-04-22 Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability Nowrouzi, Somayeh Andersen, Alan N. Macfadyen, Sarina Staunton, Kyran M. VanDerWal, Jeremy Robson, Simon K. A. Research Article The threat of anthropogenic climate change has seen a renewed focus on understanding contemporary patterns of species distribution. This is especially the case for the biota of tropical mountains, because tropical species often have particularly narrow elevational ranges and there are high levels of short-range endemism. Here we describe geographic patterns of ant diversity and distribution in the World Heritage-listed rainforests of the Australian Wet Tropics (AWT), revealing seasonal moisture stability to be an important environmental correlate of elevational patterns of species composition. We sampled ants in leaf litter, on the litter surface and on tree trunks at 26 sites from six subregions spanning five degrees of latitude and elevation ranges from 100–1,300 m. A total of 296 species from 63 genera were recorded. Species richness showed a slight peak at mid elevations, and did not vary significantly with latitude. Species composition varied substantially between subregions, and many species have highly localised distributions. There was very marked species turnover with elevation, with a particularly striking compositional disjunction between 600 m and 800 m at each subregion. This disjunction coincides with a strong environmental threshold of seasonal stability in moisture associated with cloud ‘stripping’. Our study therefore provides further support for climatic stability as a potential mechanism underlying patterns of diversity. The average height of orographic cloud layers is predicted to rise under global warming, and associated shifts in seasonal moisture stability may exacerbate biotic change caused by rising temperature alone. Public Library of Science 2016-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4830544/ /pubmed/27073848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153420 Text en © 2016 Nowrouzi et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Nowrouzi, Somayeh Andersen, Alan N. Macfadyen, Sarina Staunton, Kyran M. VanDerWal, Jeremy Robson, Simon K. A.
spellingShingle	Nowrouzi, Somayeh Andersen, Alan N. Macfadyen, Sarina Staunton, Kyran M. VanDerWal, Jeremy Robson, Simon K. A. Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability
author_facet	Nowrouzi, Somayeh Andersen, Alan N. Macfadyen, Sarina Staunton, Kyran M. VanDerWal, Jeremy Robson, Simon K. A.
author_sort	Nowrouzi, Somayeh
title	Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability
title_short	Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability
title_full	Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability
title_fullStr	Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability
title_full_unstemmed	Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability
title_sort	ant diversity and distribution along elevation gradients in the australian wet tropics: the importance of seasonal moisture stability
description	The threat of anthropogenic climate change has seen a renewed focus on understanding contemporary patterns of species distribution. This is especially the case for the biota of tropical mountains, because tropical species often have particularly narrow elevational ranges and there are high levels of short-range endemism. Here we describe geographic patterns of ant diversity and distribution in the World Heritage-listed rainforests of the Australian Wet Tropics (AWT), revealing seasonal moisture stability to be an important environmental correlate of elevational patterns of species composition. We sampled ants in leaf litter, on the litter surface and on tree trunks at 26 sites from six subregions spanning five degrees of latitude and elevation ranges from 100–1,300 m. A total of 296 species from 63 genera were recorded. Species richness showed a slight peak at mid elevations, and did not vary significantly with latitude. Species composition varied substantially between subregions, and many species have highly localised distributions. There was very marked species turnover with elevation, with a particularly striking compositional disjunction between 600 m and 800 m at each subregion. This disjunction coincides with a strong environmental threshold of seasonal stability in moisture associated with cloud ‘stripping’. Our study therefore provides further support for climatic stability as a potential mechanism underlying patterns of diversity. The average height of orographic cloud layers is predicted to rise under global warming, and associated shifts in seasonal moisture stability may exacerbate biotic change caused by rising temperature alone.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4830544/
_version_	1613565816751521792

Ant Diversity and Distribution along Elevation Gradients in the Australian Wet Tropics: The Importance of Seasonal Moisture Stability

Similar Items