Aridity and land use negatively influence a dominant species' upper critical thermal limits.

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 specie

SUBMITTER: Andrew NR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6334740 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature