Abstract:
As the need to better understand the ecology of hotspots of endemism intensifies, the
insurance hypothesis is drawing increasing attention from policy-makers and scenarioplanners.
The hypothesis states that biodiversity increases ecosystem stability. When
species numbers fluctuate, there is potential for further perturbation, loss of function and
increased opportunity for invasive species to fill vacated niches. Southern Africa is predicted
to be disproportionately impacted by global change, and high altitude systems as
foci of endemism are particularly vulnerable to warming. Using ants, a group key to
ecosystem function, we assess effects of temperature, season, aspect, vegetation and soil
conditions on montane ant species richness, stability of ant community composition, and
stability of ant species richness across an altitude gradient. Over six consecutive years of
bi-annual sampling, we gathered one of the largest standardized data sets to date. We
showed for the first time that stability of ant species richness decreases with increasing
altitude, whilst compositional similarity of ant communities is higher with increasing
altitude. Findings reveal more similar, species-poor, less stable ant communities at high
altitude at the same sites over time.
