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Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open
Journal article
Aridity and land use negatively influence a dominant species' upper critical thermal limits
PeerJ (San Francisco, CA), Vol.6, e6252
10/01/2019
PMCID: PMC6334740
PMID: 30656070
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Source: InCites
Abstract
Understanding the physiological tolerances of ectotherms, such as thermal limits, is important in predicting biotic responses to climate change. However, it is even more important to examine these impacts alongside those from other landscape changes: such as the reduction of native vegetation cover, landscape fragmentation and changes in land use intensity (LUI). Here, we integrate the observed thermal limits of the dominant and ubiquitous meat ant Iridomyrmex purpureus across climate (aridity), land cover and land use gradients spanning 270 km in length and 840 m in altitude across northern New South Wales, Australia. Meat ants were chosen for study as they are ecosystem engineers and changes in their populations may result in a cascade of changes in the populations of other species. When we assessed critical thermal maximum temperatures (CTmax) of meat ants in relation to the environmental gradients we found little influence of climate (aridity) but that CTmax decreased as LUI increased. We found no overall correlation between CTmax and CTmin. We did however find that tolerance to warming was lower for ants sampled from more arid locations. Our findings suggest that as LUI and aridification increase, the physiological resilience of I. purpureus will decline. A reduction in physiological resilience may lead to a reduction in the ecosystem service provision that these populations provide throughout their distribution.
Details
- Title
- Aridity and land use negatively influence a dominant species' upper critical thermal limits
- Creators
- Nigel R. Andrew - University of New EnglandCara Miller - University of New EnglandGraham Hall - University of New EnglandZac Hemmings - University of New EnglandIan Oliver - University of New England
- Publication Details
- PeerJ (San Francisco, CA), Vol.6, e6252
- Publisher
- Peerj Inc
- Number of pages
- 20
- Grant note
- Northern Tablelands Local Lands Services 2010-RD-0136 / NSW Environmental Trust Research Grant
- Identifiers
- 991013087217802368
- Copyright
- (c) 2019 Andrew et al. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering; Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article