Earth's climate is rapidly changing and biodiversity is changing with it: species evolve or disappear locally, regionally, or globally. This research focuses on whether populations and species of forest ants are able to adapt to climate change and avoid local extinction. Forest ants process soil, cycle nutrients, disperse seeds of many understory plants, and respond rapidly to changes in air temperature. Samples of common ant species will be collected from forests throughout the eastern U.S. DNA sequencing and phylogenetics will be used to reconstruct their evolutionary history and to reveal particular genes that may have evolved in response to climate change. Genes will also be sequenced from ants collected from experimental sites in Massachusetts and North Carolina that have been continuously warmed for three years. In controlled laboratory experiments, ants will be exposed to a range of high temperatures predicted by climate change models, and the physiological and biochemical responses of ants will be analyzed, which can provide clues as to the adaptability of ants to increasing temperatures.
The results of this research will help to understand how various physiological and biochemical traits are likely to respond to climate change, potentially enabling key species to avoid extinction. Additionally, this research program will train undergraduates and graduate students and will provide public outreach and education on the effects of climate change on biodiversity. Summer high school outreach programs for both teachers and students will be enhanced, and citizen-scientists will be engaged in documenting the effects of climate change on biodiversity.
