科研成果详情

Understanding mechanistic processes driving biodiversity change in land-use transformation is paramount but challenging. Functional trait-based approach provides a framework to understand the environmental filtering process of species composition shifts. Yet, trait selection bias may affect the results on forecasting species dynamics, subsequent analyses and the scope of conclusions, in particular, if most studies on terrestrial arthropods rely exclusively on the use of a subset of morphological traits. The integration of ecophysiological traits could then provide additional dimensions of environmental filtering caused by land-use conversion. Our study investigates how land-use conversion from forest to rubber plantation impacts functional traits distribution and trait space in foraging ant assemblages in tropical Thailand by integrating both physiological and morphological traits. The results showed that both physiological and morphological traits may explain, although unevenly, the differences observed in ant assemblages between forest and rubber plantation. The use of Critical Thermal maximum provided an important and unique role for differentiating assemblages encountered in both habitats and in characterising the niche structure of species assemblage from forest. The use of particular traits can thus improve our perception of species dynamic along land-use gradient. To advance our knowledge on the species responses and consequences of land-use changes, the use of different types of functional traits is recommended.