Our next pub for 2021 was just published in Ecosphere. This paper marks one of many papers from our group from our resampling events across the United States that took place in 2017 and 2018. In collaboration with Jelena Bujan, Kirsten de Beurs, Michael Weiser, and Michael Kaspari, we asked which ant genera are increasingContinue reading “NEW PAPER OUT! Thermal traits predict the winners and losers under climate change: an example from North American ant communities”
Category Archives: NEON ANTS
NEW PAPER OUT! Thermal diversity of North American ant communities: Cold tolerance but not heat tolerance tracks ecosystem temperature
Our second NEON ants and 5th pub for 2020 was just published in Global Ecology and Biogeography. Led by Jelena Bujan, this is our first paper linking physiological traits like critical thermal max and min (CTmax and CTmin ) to different environmental abiotic conditions at a large geographical scale. A summary from Jelena in GEB… “InContinue reading “NEW PAPER OUT! Thermal diversity of North American ant communities: Cold tolerance but not heat tolerance tracks ecosystem temperature”
NEW PAPER OUT! Species Energy and Thermal Performance Theory predict 20‐year changes in ant community abundance and richness
Our newest paper of 2019 and the first NEON ants paper is out in Ecology!!! “In an era of rapid climate change, and with it concern over insect declines, we used two theories to predict 20‐year changes in 34 North American ant communities. The ecosystems, from deserts to hardwood forests, were first surveyed in theContinue reading “NEW PAPER OUT! Species Energy and Thermal Performance Theory predict 20‐year changes in ant community abundance and richness”
NEON ANTS Fieldwork Finale
Fieldwork for NEON ants is now complete. From Oregon to Southern California across to Florida and then up to Massachusetts—35 sites were resampled in deserts, grasslands, and forests. There is a hell of a lot of data from this project and I am very grateful that I was able to partake in part of it.Continue reading “NEON ANTS Fieldwork Finale”
NEON Ants 2017: Site 9 and 10 – Organ Pipe National Monument and Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch, Arizona
The final leg of the NEON ants 2017 project—an NSF funded project— has come and gone. We visited two beautiful locations: Organ Pipe National Monument and Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch. Both of these sites were in Arizona, a state that harbors some of the greatest ant diversity in North America. Now that the fieldwork is done,Continue reading “NEON Ants 2017: Site 9 and 10 – Organ Pipe National Monument and Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch, Arizona”
NEON Ants 2017: Site 8 – Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center, California
Every once in a while you get the feeling of being in a magical place. A place few have been before, and one that few will probably visit in the future. While the Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center is visited by students of the University of California system for field trips and field work,Continue reading “NEON Ants 2017: Site 8 – Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center, California”
NEON Ants 2017: Site 7 – El Centro, California
The NEON ants crew is back at it after a short hiatus for the Ecological Society of America Annual meeting. This time we are headed to the lovely south western United States. Our first stop is right on the border of Southern California and Mexico around the town of El Centro. A funny story. HavingContinue reading “NEON Ants 2017: Site 7 – El Centro, California”
Neon Blog Post: “Researchers leverage NEON field sites to find out what ants can tell us about changing climates”
The National Ecological Observatory Network (or NEON for short) just released a blog post about some of the work that we have been doing over the past two years. In it, they describe what we are up to (like the above image of how we sample 1-m² plots for ants) and some things still toContinue reading “Neon Blog Post: “Researchers leverage NEON field sites to find out what ants can tell us about changing climates””
Neon Ants 2017-Part 3: Myles Standish State Forest, Massachusetts and Cedar Creek LTER, Minnesota
I haven been quite busy catching up on writing and reviewing manuscripts so this update will more or less be just a slide show of the last 2 sites that we visited before coming home to Oklahoma. Sites 5 and 6 of the Neon Ants 2017 project visited the beautiful Myles Standish State Forest inContinue reading “Neon Ants 2017-Part 3: Myles Standish State Forest, Massachusetts and Cedar Creek LTER, Minnesota”
Neon Ants 2017-Part 2: Virginia Coast Reserve LTER, Virginia and Harvard Forest LTER, Massachusetts
Sites 3 and 4 of the Neon Ants 2017 project visited two wonderful LTER sites on the east coast of the USA: Virginia Coast Reserve LTER, Virginia and the Harvard Forest LTER, Massachusetts. The LTER (Long Term Ecological Research: https://lternet.edu/) program covers 25 different ecosystems from Alaska to the Caribbean including deserts, estuaries, lakes, oceans,Continue reading “Neon Ants 2017-Part 2: Virginia Coast Reserve LTER, Virginia and Harvard Forest LTER, Massachusetts”
Roeder Lab 