Abstract
The effect of disturbance on ecosystems is one of the key questions in contemporary ecology and conservation biology. In the proposed project, I address this question both from a basic ecological point of view as well as in a need-driven approach by outlining several studies on the effect of canopy-thinning on ant-epiphyte metacommunity structure. The combination of these two mutually non-exclusive approaches is the reason why I choose to perform the studies in a shade coffee agroecosystem in the Chiapas, Mexico. First it provides the opportunity to study the effect of different management intenstiy on this ecosystem. Second, it functions as a model system to answer the more general ecological question about rain forest ecocsystem response to canopy disturbance. The field site is subjected to four different canopy-thinning intensities. I will analyze recently collected and previously unpublished data on community structure of arboreal ants and combine this with spatially explicit epiphyte abundance data, which I will collect on the shade-trees. In order to study the process of the interaction between ants and plants, I will preform an experiment on the ant response to variuos epiphytes (both vascular and non-vascular) on coffee plants and shade trees. I will primarily be located at Dr. Stacy M. Philpott´s lab in University of Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A, but with extant collaboration with the labs of Prof. J. Vandermeer and Prof. I. Perfecto at University of Michigan.
Sweden