Research

Understanding what drives variation in species diversity in space and time and limits coexistence in local communities is a main focus of community ecology and biogeography. Although a substantial amount of work has been published on the causes and consequences of biodiversity since the break through of Homage to Santa Rosalia (Hutchinson 1959), ecologists still rely heavily on niche-based theories to account for the coexistence and packing of species in natural communities. Niche-based theories posit that species can coexist by partitioning a multi-dimensional environmental space.

Aphaenogaster picea (© Alex Wild)

Clearly, a variety of biotic and abiotic factors interact to determine the composition of most ecological communities. For example, the abiotic environment can impose filters such that only certain species are able to persist (Weiher and Keddy 1995). Alternatively, interspecific interactions can affect community membership (Gotelli and McCabe 2002). Or neutral processes could govern the dyanmics and structure of communities. At least since MacArthur’s seminal work (1958), interspecific competition has received considerable attention as a structuring agent capable of shaping communities.

My doctoral work aims to document patterns of ant diversity and explore the possible ecological mechanisms leading to these patterns. Elucidating the processes by which communities assemble and species coexist might help explain spatial variation in species diversity. Using a combination of manipulative experiments, broad-scale surveys, behavioral assays and phylogenetic analyses, I examine which ecological processes account for the number of species coexisting in ant communities.