Climate Change Affects Ants and Biodiversity

Friday, November 4, 2011 - 14:02 in Biology & Nature

In the eastern US, ants are integral to plant biodiversity because they help disperse seeds. But ants' ability to perform this vital function, and others, may be jeopardized by climate change, according to Nate Sanders, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Sanders and his colleagues are testing the effects of climate change on ants by heating up patches of forest and tracking how the ants respond. Sanders observed that, on average, the ants foraged for about ten hours a day at normal temperatures. When temperatures were raised just a half a degree, the ants stayed in their nests underground and foraged just an hour. The absence of ants' seed dispersal and nutrient cycling could have profound influence on biodiversity.

Read the whole article on Newswise - Scinews

More from Newswise - Scinews

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net