IGN 6-9 - NEONAnts: Spatial and temporal dynamics of North American ant assemblages

Wednesday, August 10, 2016
316, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center
Michael D. Weiser and Michael Kaspari, Department of Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
The NEONAnts project is currently resampling ant assemblages across North America that we originally sampled in 1994-1995. Our aim is to help jump-start NEON’s goals with an array of 20-year community trajectories for a dominant animal clade. Our specific goals are to: 1) test hypotheses relating thermal tolerance of ants to climate and biogeochemistry; 2) measure community trajectories to changing gradients of temperature, precipitation and seasonality; and 3) develop models that integrate weather, climate and thermal tolerance to predict temporal and spatial patterns of ant activity, and evaluate them using bycatch from NEON pitfall traps.