Habitat Transitions
The environmental characteristics of many natural environments are shifting rapidly, due to both climate change and habitat restoration efforts. The effects of habitat alterations on native community composition is often difficult to study because of the lack of long term datasets. My research combines three different approaches to study how habitat change influences ant communities: 1) We repeat historic survey work so to compare how community composition has shifted through time, 2) We use a space-for-time substitution method where we simultaneously sample sites with different ages of restoration, and 3) We are begining long term monitoring of restoration projects. By combining these three methods we hope to be able to determine how communities respond to environmental change and determine what factors are important in predicting species responses to those changes.
PDF - The effects of restoration age and prescribed burns on grassland ant community structure