气候变暖与蚂蚁群落耦合作用对土壤生态环境的影响

Climate change is currently the focus of global environmental change research, especially the consequences of climate warming effects on the soil ecosystem processes and services. During the pre-research of the relationships between ant communities and land use change in southwest China, we found that ant diversity, structures and indicators were associated with environmental variables. Ants are common soil bioturbators in soil ecosystem; therefore, they play major functional roles in the processes and functions within the soil ecosystem. Based on this research, in this project, we will select secondary natural forest in south subtropical in China. Climate warming effects on ant diversity, community structures, functional group compositions and dominant species is simulating study by artificial warming, to probe into the mechanism of climate warming effects on ant communities. We also use control experiments to explore the temperature warming impact on soil ecological environments under ants presence and absence, to probe into the mechanism of coupling effects between climate warming and ant communities on soil ecological environments. Under the global warming background, all of these researches provide theory and technology support for biodiversity and fragile ecosystem protection in mountainous area in southwest China.

气候变化是目前全球环境变化研究的重点，特别是气候变暖对土壤生态系统过程和服务产生的生态后果。前期在西南山地开展的蚂蚁群落与土地利用变化研究时发现，蚂蚁群落多样性、结构和指示物种与环境因子关系密切；而蚂蚁是土壤中常见的生物扰动者，其在土壤生态系统过程和功能中具有重要的生态功能。本项目在此基础上，进一步以蚂蚁群落和气候变暖耦合作用关系为研究对象，在南亚热带区域天然次生林中，通过增温模拟气候变暖，研究气候变暖对蚂蚁多样性、群落结构、功能群组成及优势物种的影响，探讨气候变暖影响蚂蚁群落的途径和机制；通过控制试验研究土壤中有无蚂蚁情况下增温对土壤生态环境的影响，包括理化性质、有机质、酶活性和微生物群落变化，通过各层面的关系变化，明确耦合作用对土壤生态环境影响的途径和机制。为今后我国西南山地气候变暖背景下生物多样性和脆弱生态系统保护提供理论基础。

本项目以不同栖境、不同发生阶段和不同发生强度等红火蚁入侵压力梯度为切入口，研究不同气候区红火蚁入侵对本地蚂蚁群落多样性、群落结构和功能多样性的影响，开展室内增温研究红火蚁体重和觅食行为变化、比较不同蚂蚁个体耐受性和竞争以及研究了红火蚁营巢对土壤环境的扰动作用。明确了红火蚁入侵对本地蚂蚁群落物种多样性和功能多样性造成的影响，揭示群落中蚂蚁物种间的发现-支配权衡，发现红火蚁营巢提高了土壤氮磷钾含量，形成有利于种子萌发和植物生长的微环境。研究结果对于红火蚁的防治工作或利用红火蚁具有理论价值，丰富了生物入侵对生态系统功能影响研究的基础理论，为红火蚁发生区或潜在发生区的生物多样性保护提供决策依据。