Testing the context dependence of ant nutrient preference across habitat strata and trophic levels in Neotropical biomes.

Animals are integrated into the wider ecosystem via their foraging and behavior. The compensation hypothesis predicts that animals target their foraging efforts (i) toward nutrients that are scarce in the environment and (ii) toward nutrients that are not present in the usual diet of species, which varies across trophic levels. Understanding how foraging for resources varies locally, such as across habitat strata, and trophic levels will help to elucidate the links between the local environment and communities to the ecological functions that animals mediate.

ATLANTIC ANTS: a data set of ants in Atlantic Forests of South America.

Ants, an ecologically successful and numerically dominant group of animals, play key ecological roles as soil engineers, predators, nutrient recyclers, and regulators of plant growth and reproduction in most terrestrial ecosystems. Further, ants are widely used as bioindicators of the ecological impact of land use. We gathered information of ant species in the Atlantic Forest of South America.

Temperature and productivity distinctly affect the species richness of ectothermic and endothermic multitrophic guilds along a tropical elevational gradient.

The diversity of endotherms and ectotherms may be differently affected by ambient temperature and net primary productivity (NPP). Additionally, little is known about how these drivers affect the diversity of guilds of different trophic levels. We assessed the relative role of temperature and NPP in multitrophic guilds of ectothermic (arthropods: ants, ground beetles, spiders, and harvestmen) and endothermic (large mammals) animals along a tropical elevational gradient.

Diaspore Removal by Ants Does Not Reflect the Same Patterns of Ant Assemblages in Mining and Rehabilitation Areas.

Mining is responsible for drastic ecosystem changes and rehabilitation is used to promote the return of functions after these impacts. In this scenario, we investigated the responses of ant assemblages and diaspore removal by ants to the transformations caused by mining and rehabilitation predicting that (a) the increase in plant density (a proxy for mining intensity) led to an increase in ant richness, percentage of diaspores removed, and changes in species composition that in turn are correlated with changes in environmental variables; (b) the increase in vegetation structure (a proxy for rehabilitation ages) led to an increase in ant richness, percentage of diaspores removed, and changes in species composition that in turn are correlated with changes in environmental variables. Additionally, we also verified which functional groups were primarily responsible for diaspore removal.

Resource allocation in Copaifera langsdorffii (Fabaceae): how supra-annual fruiting affects plant traits and herbivory?

Plants have limited resources to invest in reproduction, vegetative growth and defense against herbivorous. Trade-off in resources allocation promotes changes in plant traits that may affect higher trophic levels. In this study, we evaluated the trade-off effect between years of high and low fruiting on the investment of resources for growth and defense, and their indirect effects on herbivory in Copaifera langsdorffii.