Data from: Climate mediates the effects of disturbance on ant assemblage structure

Many studies have focused on the impacts of climate change on biological assemblages, yet little is known about how climate interacts with other major anthropogenic influences on biodiversity, such as habitat disturbance. Using a unique global database of 1128 local ant assemblages, we examined whether climate mediates the effects of habitat disturbance on assemblage structure at a global scale. Species richness and evenness were associated positively with temperature, and negatively with disturbance. However, the interaction among temperature, precipitation and disturbance shaped species richness and evenness. The effect was manifested through a failure of species richness to increase substantially with temperature in transformed habitats at low precipitation. At low precipitation levels, evenness increased with temperature in undisturbed sites, peaked at medium temperatures in disturbed sites and remained low in transformed sites. In warmer climates with lower rainfall, the effects of increasing disturbance on species richness and evenness were akin to decreases in temperature of up to 9°C. Anthropogenic disturbance and ongoing climate change may interact in complicated ways to shape the structure of assemblages, with hot, arid environments likely to be at greatest risk.

诸多研究已围绕气候变化对生物群落的影响展开了大量探讨，但目前学界对气候如何与其他主要人为生物多样性影响因素（如生境干扰）产生交互作用仍鲜有了解。本研究依托包含1128个本地蚁类群落的独特全球数据库，在全球尺度下检验气候是否介导生境干扰对群落结构的影响。物种丰富度与均匀度均与温度呈正相关，与生境干扰呈负相关。然而，温度、降水与干扰三者的交互作用共同塑造了物种丰富度与均匀度的分布格局。该交互效应具体体现为：在降水匮乏的生境中，人工改造生境的物种丰富度并未随温度升高出现显著增长。在降水水平较低的条件下，未受干扰样地的物种均匀度随温度升高而上升，受干扰样地的均匀度在中等温度区间达到峰值，而人工改造生境的均匀度则始终维持在较低水平。在温暖少雨的气候区域中，生境干扰加剧对物种丰富度与均匀度产生的影响，等效于温度降低最高达9℃时的效应。人为干扰与持续进行的气候变化可能通过复杂的交互作用重塑生物群落结构，而炎热干旱的生态系统或面临最高的风险。