Habitat fragmentation impacts ecosystems worldwide through habitat loss, reduced connectivity, and edge effects. Yet, these landscape factors are often confounded, leaving much to be investigated about their relative effects, especially on species interactions. In a landscape experiment, we investigated the consequences of connectivity and edge effects for seed dispersal by ants. We found that ants dispersed seeds farther in habitat patches connected by corridors, but only in patch centers. We did not see an effect on the total number of seeds moved or the rate ants detected seeds. Furthermore, we did not see any differences in ant community composition across patch types, suggesting that shifts in ant behavior or other factors increased ant seed dispersal in patches connected by corridors. Long‐distance seed dispersal by ants that requires an accumulation of short‐distance dispersal events over generations may be an underappreciated mechanism through which corridors increase plant diversity.
Although corridors are frequently regarded as a way to mitigate the negative effects of habitat fragmentation, concerns persist that corridors may facilitate the spread of invasive species to the detriment of native species. The invasive fire ant, We expected that these observed corridor effects would be transient, that is, that fire ant density and native ant species richness differences between connected and unconnected patches would diminish over time as fire ants eventually fully established within patches. We tested this prediction by resampling the three landscapes dominated by polygyne fire ants 6 to 11 years after our original study. Differences in fire ant density between connected and unconnected habitat patches in these landscapes decreased, as expected. Differences in native ant species richness were variable but lowest in the last 2 years of sampling. These findings support our prediction of transient corridor effects on this invasive ant and stress the importance of temporal dynamics in assessing population and community impacts of habitat connectivity.
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10401186
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecological Entomology
- Volume:
- 48
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0307-6946
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 263-268
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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