Abstract
Studying competition dynamics of invertebrate species is essential to understanding species distribution, how species become invasive, and dealing with pests and pollinators. However, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to what geographical factors influence invertebrate competition. This study investigates competition dynamics of terrestrial invertebrates across various ecosystems and geographical areas, as well potential predictors for the patterns observed. I used food lures across sites in multiple countries, and recorded the number of visitors and level of consumption to attribute a competition score to each lure. Three different food types were used to account for dietary preferences (Fat, Protein, and Sugar). The results show that there is a significant variation of competition scores across sites. In addition, I identified a significant statistical interaction between sites and food types in relation to competition scores, which suggests that competition is different between the sites, but the pattern of variation differs per food type. A regression was conducted to see if Net Primary Productivity or the geological age of an ecosystem were predictors of the variation in competition scores. Geological age came out statistically significant for the scores in the Fat food type, suggesting that it may be an important driver for invertebrate competition. Idiosyncrasies of the sites are discussed with the aim to identify other factors that may affect competition levels and their patterns. This research contributes to the study of competition dynamics in terrestrial invertebrates and could inspire an approach to predicting interactions and effects of new or introduced species.
References
Andersen, A. (1992). Regulation of “ Momentary ” Diversity by Dominant Species in Exceptionally Rich Ant Communities of the Australian Seasonal Tropics. American Naturalist, 140:401–420.
Baker, C. M., Hodgson, J. C., Tartaglia, E., & Clarke, R. H. (2017). Modelling tropical fire ant
(Solenopsis geminata) dynamics and detection to inform an eradication project. Biological Invasions, 19(10), 2959–2970. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-017-1499-9
Borges PAV, Brown VK. (1999). Effect of island geological age on the arthropod species richness of Azorean pastures. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 66(3):373–410. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.1999.tb01897.x.
Douglas Bates, Martin Maechler, Ben Bolker, Steve Walker. (2015). Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects
Models Using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1-48. doi:10.18637/jss.v067.i01.
Fox J, Weisberg S. (2019). _An R Companion to Applied Regression_, Third edition. Sage, Thousand Oaks CA. <https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Books/Companion/>.
Garcia M., J. & Machimura, Takashi & Matsui, Takanori & Miyauchi, Tatsuya. (2014). Estimating the potential and planning of bioethanol production from agro-residues based on a modelpredicted NPP under climate change in Ecuador. Journal of Agricultural Meteorology, 70. 171-185. 10.2480/agrmet.D-13-00027.
Graeme M. J. Hall. (2001). Mitigating an Organization’s Future Net Carbon Emissions by Native
Forest Restoration. Ecological Applications, 11(6), 1622–1633. https://doi.org/10.2307/3061083
Guilherme DR, Souza JLP, Franklin E, Pequeno PACL, Chagas AC das, Baccaro FB. (2019). Can environmental complexity predict functional trait composition of ground-dwelling ant assemblages? A test across the Amazon Basin. Acta Oecologica, 99:103434.
doi:10.1016/j.actao.2019.05.004
Guilherme DR, Pequeno PACL, Baccaro FB, Franklin E, dos Santos Neto CR, Souza JLP. (2021). Direct and indirect effects of geographic and environmental factors on ant beta diversity across Amazon basin. Oecologia, 198(1):193–203. doi:10.1007/s00442-021-05083-7.
Hamann, O. (1979). On Climatic Conditions, Vegetation Types, and Leaf Size in the Galapagos Islands. Biotropica, 11(2), 101–122. https://doi.org/10.2307/2387785
Hoeppner, S. S. & Dukes, J. S. (2012). Interactive responses of old-field plant growth and composition to warming and precipitation. Global Change Biol, 18, 1754-1768.
Kaspari M, O’Donnell S, Kercher JR. (2000). Energy, Density, and Constraints to Species
Richness: Ant Assemblages along a Productivity Gradient. The American Naturalist, 155(2):280–293. doi:10.1086/303313.
Kaspari M, Ward PS, Yuan M. (2004). Energy gradients and the geographic distribution of local ant diversity. Oecologia, 140(3):407–413. doi:10.1007/s00442-004-1607-2.
Kelley D, Page K, Quiroga D, Salazar R. (2019). The Origins and Ecology of the Galapagos Islands. Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism, 67–93. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-059156_3.
Komsta L, Novomestky F (2022). _moments: Moments, Cumulants, Skewness, Kurtosis and
Related Tests_. R package version 0.14.1, <https://CRAN.Rproject.org/package=moments>.
Kuznetsova A, Brockhoff PB, Christensen RHB. (2017). “lmerTest Package: Tests in Linear
Mixed Effects Models.” Journal of Statistical Software, *82*(13), 1-26. doi:10.18637/jss.v082.i13 <https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v082.i13>.
Lenth R (2023). _emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means_. R package version 1.8.4-1, <https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=emmeans>.
Magill, A. H., Downs, M. R., Nadelhoffer, K. J., Hallett, R. A. & Aber, J. D. (1996). Forest ecosystem response to four years of chronic nitrate and sulfate additions at Bear Brooks Watershed, Maine, USA. For. Ecol. Manage. 84, 29-37.
Metcalfe, D. B. et al. (2010). Shifts in plant respiration and carbon use efficiency at a large-scale drought experiment in the eastern Amazon. New Phytol, 187, 608-621.
Miner, M.C., Wilson Rankin, E.E. (2023). Bumble Bee Avoidance of Argentine Ants and
Associated Chemical Cues. J Insect Behav 36, 20–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-02309815-w
Myster, R. W. (2014). Interactive effects of flooding and treefall gap formation on terra firme forest and várzea forest seed and seedling mechanisms and tolerances in the Ecuadorean Amazon. Community Ecology, 15(2), 212–221. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43966633
NASA. (2012-2016). NET PRIMARY PRODUCTIVITY (1 MONTH - TERRA/MODIS).
Retrieved from NASA Earth Observation:
https://neo.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=MOD17A2_M_PSN
Nerlekar AN. (2018). Seasonally dependent relationship between insect herbivores and host plant density inJatropha nana, a tropical perennial herb. Biology Open. 7(8):bio035071. doi:10.1242/bio.035071.
Nichols, W. F., & Nichols, V. C. (2008). The Land Use History, Flora, and Natural Communities of the Isles of Shoals, Rye, New Hampshire and Kittery, Maine. Rhodora, 110(943), 245– 295. https://doi.org/10.3119/07-14.1
Nigel C. A. Pitman, Terborgh, J., Silman, M. R., & Nunez, P. (1999). Tree Species Distributions in an Upper Amazonian Forest. Ecology, 80(8), 2651–2661. https://doi.org/10.2307/177247
Parr, C.L. & Gibb, H. (2010). Competition and the role of dominant ants. Ant Ecology (ed. by L. Lach, C. Parr & K. Abbott), pp. 77– 96. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K.
Percy, M. S., Riveros-Iregui, D. A., Mirus, B. B., & Benninger, L. K. (2020). Temporal and spatial variability of shallow soil moisture across four planar hillslopes on a tropical ocean island, San Cristóbal, Galápagos. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 30, 100692.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2020.100692
Procter, D. L. C. (1984). Towards a Biogeography of Free-Living Soil Nematodes. I. Changing
Species Richness, Diversity and Densities with Changing Latitude. Journal of Biogeography, 11(2), 103–117. https://doi.org/10.2307/2844684
R Core Team (2022). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL https://www.R-project.org/.
Ribas CR, Schoereder JH. (2002). Are All Ant Mosaics Caused by Competition? Oecologia.
(4):606–611.
Scheiner SM. (1992). Measuring Pattern Diversity. Ecology. 73(5):1860–1867. doi:10.2307/1940037.
Schemske, D. W., Mittelbach, G. G., Cornell, H. V., Sobel, J. M., & Roy, K. (2009). Is There a
Latitudinal Gradient in the Importance of Biotic Interactions? Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 40, 245–269. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20744040
Schofield, E. K. (1989). Effects of Introduced Plants and Animals on Island Vegetation: Examples from the Galapagos Archipelago. Conservation Biology, 3(3), 227–238. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2386166
Shoals Marine Lab. (2023). Island history. Shoals Marine Lab.
https://www.shoalsmarinelaboratory.org/about/island-history
Song, J., Ru, J., Zheng, M. et al. (2020). A global database of plant production and carbon exchange from global change manipulative experiments. Sci Data 7, 323. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-00661-5
Taylor DR, Aarssen LW, Loehle C. (1990). On the Relationship between r/K Selection and Environmental Carrying Capacity: A New Habitat Templet for Plant Life History Strategies. Oikos. 58(2):239. doi:10.2307/3545432.
Trøjelsgaard, K., Báez, M., Espadaler, X., Nogales, M., Oromí, P., Roche, F.L. and Olesen, J.M.
(2013). Island biogeography of mutualistic interaction networks. J. Biogeogr., 40: 2020-
https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12165
Vasconcelos HL, Vilhena JMS, Facure KG, Albernaz ALKM. (2010). Patterns of ant species diversity and turnover across 2000 km of Amazonian floodplain forest. Journal of Biogeography. 37(3):432–440. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2009.02230.x.
Verhulst, P.F. (1838) Notice sur la loi que la population suit dans accroissement. Correspondence Mathématique et Physique, 10, 113-121. http://134.76.163.65.
Volder, A., Gifford, R. M. & Evans, J. R. (2007). Effects of elevated atmospheric CO2, cutting frequency, and differential day/night atmospheric warming on root growth and turnover of Phalaris swards. Global Change Biol. 13, 1040-1052.
Ward, D. F. & J. Beggs. (2007). Coexistence, habitat patterns and the assembly of ant communities in the Yasawa islands, Fiji. Acta Oecologica 32:215–223.
Wauters, N., Dekoninck, W., Herrera, H. W., & Fournier, D. (2014). Distribution, behavioral dominance and potential impacts on endemic fauna of tropical fire antsolenopsis geminata(fabricius, 1804) (hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae) in the Galápagos
Archipelago. Pan-Pacific Entomologist, 90(4), 205–220. https://doi.org/10.3956/2014-
4.205
Wauters, N., Dekoninck, W., Hendrickx, F., Herrera, H. W., & Fournier, D. (2015). Habitat Association and coexistence of endemic and introduced ant species in the Galápagos Islands. Ecological Entomology, 41(1), 40–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/een.12256
Winter, B. (2013). A very basic tutorial for performing linear mixed effects analyses (Tutorial 2).
Merced: University of California, Merced, Cognitive and Information Sciences.
Wisniewski, R. L. (1980). Carrying Capacity: Understanding our Biological Limitations. Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 7(2), 55–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23261723
Woodwell, G. M., & Whittaker, R. H. (1968). Primary Production in Terrestrial Ecosystems.
American Zoologist, 8(1), 19–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3881529
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2023 Iliana Goodhew