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

Many studies have focussed 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 1129 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 mid 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.

诸多研究已聚焦气候变化对生物群落（biological assemblages）的影响，但目前学界对气候如何与其他主要人为活动驱动的生物多样性影响因子（如生境干扰）产生交互作用的认知仍十分有限。本研究依托涵盖1129个本地蚁类群落（ant assemblages）的独特全球数据库，在全球尺度下探讨气候是否介导生境干扰对群落结构的影响。物种丰富度与物种均匀度均与温度呈正相关，与生境干扰呈负相关。然而，温度、降水量与生境干扰三者的交互作用共同塑造了物种丰富度与物种均匀度的分布格局。该交互效应具体表现为：在低降水环境的受改造生境中，物种丰富度并未随温度升高出现显著提升。在低降水条件下，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，而受改造生境的均匀度始终维持在较低水平。在暖干气候区域，生境干扰加剧对物种丰富度与均匀度产生的影响，等效于温度最多降低9℃所带来的效应。人为生境干扰与持续进行的气候变化可能通过复杂的交互作用共同塑造生物群落结构，其中炎热干旱环境面临的风险最高。