Authors
Brandon T Bestelmeyer, John A Wiens
Publication date
2001/8
Journal
Ecological Applications
Volume
11
Issue
4
Pages
1123-1140
Publisher
Ecological Society of America
Description
The conservation of biodiversity in landscape mosaics requires an understanding of the impacts of human land use within mosaic elements and an evaluation of the biological uniqueness of different elements. We address these issues by examining patterns of ant diversity in three semiarid rangeland landscapes used predominantly for grazing. These landscapes lie along a regional gradient from shortgrass steppe through a transitional zone to desert grassland, along which climate and ant species composition vary. Within each landscape, we compared the effects of grazing and natural variation in soils and vegetation on ant diversity and community composition. Grazing had little effect on ant richness, diversity, or composition at the transitional zone or the desert grassland site, but ungrazed areas at the shortgrass steppe site had a higher overall richness and favored the abundance of some species. Some …
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