Linking disturbances in neotropical landscapes with ecosystem functional traits: A preliminary assessment using epigaeic and leaf‐litter ant communities

Abstract

Abstract Environmental stressors and changes in land use have led to rapid and dramatic species losses and a reduction in associated ecosystem services. Functional diversity has increasingly been suggested as an alternative for evaluating anthropogenic disturbances and restoration programs because it reflects different aspects of the relationship between biological diversity, ecosystem functioning and environmental constraints. Ants are important components of terrestrial food webs and a key group associated with diverse interactions and ecosystem processes. Additionally, their sensitiveness and rapid response to environmental changes pave the way for their use as informative metrics for monitoring several processes that threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services. Consequently, ants' functional diversity might be considered leading edge indicators to assess ecosystem changes to ongoing anthropogenic disturbances. The purpose of this study was to gauge the usefulness of epigaeic and leaf‐litter ants' functional responses towards measuring ecosystem degradation (and/or restoration) in the Brazilian Amazon. Our results demonstrate that functional traits exhibited sensitivity to ongoing changes, as well as different responses to specific environmental disturbances. Communities supporting ants with specialised functional traits associated with pristine ecosystems suffered high species loss and were correlated with specific anthropogenic stressors. The results obtained pinpoint the importance of pristine ecosystems for conserving unique functional attributes and biodiversity in neotropical forest landscapes. We highlight the significance of further studies in this scope to guide environmental managers and practitioners in applying the best policies for integrated neotropical landscapes conservation, considering the competing interests of farmers, foresters and conservationists, but also the unpredictable effects of local and regional environmental changes.