Morphological traits: predictable responses to macrohabitats across a 300 km scale.

ABSTRACT: Species traits may provide a short-cut to predicting generalities in species turnover in response to environmental change, particularly for poorly known taxa. We ask if morphological traits of assemblages respond predictably to macrohabitats across a large scale. Ant assemblages were collected at nine paired pasture and remnant sites from within three areas along a 300 km distance. We measured ten functional morphological traits for replicate individuals of each species. We used a fourth corner model to test associations between microhabitat variables, macrohabitats (pastures and remnants) and traits. In addition, we tested the phylogenetic independence of traits, to determine if responses were likely to be due to filtering by morphology or phylogeny. Nine of ten traits were predicted by m

SUBMITTER: Yates ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3961160 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature