urban woodland with oaks, grass, and eucalypts

Tree Preferences and Temporal Activity in an Urban Ant Community

Urbanized Woodland

In Professor Deborah Gordon's lab at Stanford University, my colleagues and I investigated what types of ants use urban areas. We surveyed ants in an urban woodland across different seasons and times of day. We also looked at whether the ants used native broadleaf evergreen, exotic evergreen, or native deciduous trees. We found that different ant species were more common at different seasons and times of day. Ant species overall preferred using native broadleaf evergreen trees, particularly the coast live oak .

Our findings demonstrate that an urbanized woodland maintained a native ant community with strong temporal niche partitioning. Ants preferred using native, evergreen Quercus spp., suggesting that these oaks may help maintain ant diversity. Oak conservation efforts may have added benefit of supporting native ant communities.

To learn more, check out this paper we published in the Journal of Insect Behavior and this interview I gave for Myrmecological News Blog. We also published a paper in Journal of Thermal Biology comparing the thermal niches of Argentine ants and winter ants.

Nelson, MacArthur-Waltz, Gordon.pdf

Tree Preference and Temporal Activity Patterns for a Native Ant Community in an Urbanized California Woodland - Journal of Insect BehaviorAnthropogenic disturbances, including land use change and exotic species, can alter the diversity and dynamics of ant communities. To examine foraging behavior in an urbanized habitat in northern California, we surveyed the presence of 9 ant species on 876 trees across 4 seasons during both day and night in a 9.5-hectare urbanized oak-exotic woodland. Ants were more likely to be observed on native, evergreen trees, suggesting that native evergreen species may help maintain ant diversity. Species showed clear patterns of temporal partitioning of foraging activity. Ant species varied in their use of native evergreen Quercus agrifolia trees across season and day/night axes. Of the 3 ant species most frequently observed, Camponotus semitestaceus was most active during spring and summer nights, Formica moki was most active during spring and summer days, and Prenolepis imparis was most active during both day and night during fall and winter. Liometopum occidentale was the second most active species during summer day and night, and winter day. Our findings demonstrate that an oak-exotic urban woodland in Northern California was able to maintain a native ant community, and strong temporal partitioning within that community.

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