Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are one of the most dominant terrestrial organisms worldwide. They are hugely abundant, both in terms of sheer numbers and biomass, on every continent except Antarctica ...and are deeply embedded within a diversity of ecological networks and processes. Ants are also eusocial and colonial organisms—their lifecycle is built on the labor of sterile worker ants who support a small number of reproductive individuals. Given the climatic changes that our planet faces, we need to understand how various important taxonomic groups will respond; this includes the ants. In this review, we synthesize the available literature to tackle this question. The answer is complicated. The ant literature has focused on temperature, and we broadly understand the ways in which thermal changes may affect ant colonies, populations, and communities. In general, we expect that species living in the Tropics, and in thermally variable microhabitats, such as the canopy and leaf litter environments, will be negatively impacted by rising temperatures. Species living in the temperate zones and those able to thermally buffer their nests in the soil or behaviorally avoid higher temperatures, however, are likely to be unaffected or may even benefit from a changed climate. How ants will respond to changes to other abiotic drivers associated with climate change is largely unknown, as is the detail on how altered ant populations and communities will ramify through their wider ecological networks. We discuss how eusociality may allow ants to adapt to, or tolerate, climate change in ways that solitary organisms cannot and we identify key geographic and phylogenetic hotspots of climate vulnerability and resistance. We finish by emphasizing the key research questions that we need to address moving forward so that we may fully appreciate how this critical insect group will respond to the ongoing climate crisis.
In this review, we synthesise available literature on how climate change drivers will affect ants from the individual to the community. We highlight that eusociality may confer greater adaptation and tolerance to climate change than for solitary organisms. We identify key geographic and phylogenetic hotspots of climate change risk and resistance.
Survival models are used extensively in biomedical sciences, where they allow the investigation of the effect of exposures on health outcomes. It is desirable to use diverse data sets in survival ...analyses, because this offers increased statistical power and generalisability of results. However, there are often challenges with bringing data together in one location or following an analysis plan and sharing results. DataSHIELD is an analysis platform that helps users to overcome these ethical, governance and process difficulties. It allows users to analyse data remotely, using functions that are built to restrict access to the detailed data items (federated analysis). Previous works have provided survival modelling functionality in DataSHIELD (dsSurvival package), but there is a requirement to provide functions that offer privacy enhancing survival curves that retain useful information.
We introduce an enhanced version of the dsSurvival package which offers privacy enhancing survival curves for DataSHIELD. Different methods for enhancing privacy were evaluated for their effectiveness in enhancing privacy while maintaining utility. We demonstrated how our selected method could enhance privacy in different scenarios using real survival data. The details of how DataSHIELD can be used to generate survival curves can be found in the associated tutorial.
Abstract
Objective
Platforms such as DataSHIELD allow users to analyse sensitive data remotely, without having full access to the detailed data items (federated analysis). While this feature helps to ...overcome difficulties with data sharing, it can make it challenging to write code without full visibility of the data. One solution is to generate realistic, non-disclosive synthetic data that can be transferred to the analyst so they can perfect their code without the access limitation. When this process is complete, they can run the code on the real data.
Results
We have created a package in DataSHIELD (dsSynthetic) which allows generation of realistic synthetic data, building on existing packages. In our paper and accompanying tutorial we demonstrate how the use of synthetic data generated with our package can help DataSHIELD users with tasks such as writing analysis scripts and harmonising data to common scales and measures.
Invertebrates are dominant species in primary tropical rainforests, where their abundance and diversity contributes to the functioning and resilience of these globally important ecosystems. However, ...more than one-third of tropical forests have been logged, with dramatic impacts on rainforest biodiversity that may disrupt key ecosystem processes. We find that the contribution of invertebrates to three ecosystem processes operating at three trophic levels (litter decomposition, seed predation and removal, and invertebrate predation) is reduced by up to one-half following logging. These changes are associated with decreased abundance of key functional groups of termites, ants, beetles and earthworms, and an increase in the abundance of small mammals, amphibians and insectivorous birds in logged relative to primary forest. Our results suggest that ecosystem processes themselves have considerable resilience to logging, but the consistent decline of invertebrate functional importance is indicative of a human-induced shift in how these ecological processes operate in tropical rainforests.
Online food delivery services facilitate ‘online’ access to food outlets selling food prepared away-from-home. Online food outlet access has not previously been investigated in England or across an ...entire country. Systematic differences in online food outlet access could exacerbate existing health inequalities, which is a public health concern. However, this is not known. Across postcode districts in England (n = 2118), we identified and described the number of food outlets and unique cuisine types accessible online from the market leader (Just Eat). We investigated associations with area-level deprivation using adjusted negative binomial regression models. We also compared the number of food outlets accessible online with the number physically accessible in the neighbourhood (1600m Euclidean buffers of postcode district geographic centroids) and investigated associations with deprivation using an adjusted general linear model. For each outcome, we predicted means and 95% confidence intervals. In November 2019, 29,232 food outlets were registered to accept orders online. Overall, the median number of food outlets accessible online per postcode district was 63.5 (IQR; 16.0–156.0). For the number of food outlets accessible online as a percentage of the number accessible within the neighbourhood, the median was 63.4% (IQR; 35.6–96.5). Analysis using negative binomial regression showed that online food outlet access was highest in the most deprived postcode districts (n = 106.1; 95% CI: 91.9, 120.3). The number of food outlets accessible online as a percentage of those accessible within the neighbourhood was highest in the least deprived postcode districts (n = 86.2%; 95% CI: 78.6, 93.7). In England, online food outlet access is socioeconomically patterned. Further research is required to understand how online food outlet access is related to using online food delivery services.
•Online food delivery services provide access to food prepared away-from-home.•We describe ‘online’ access to outlets selling this food across England.•Around one-third of food outlets were registered to accept orders online.•Online food outlet access increases existing neighbourhood food outlet access.•Online food outlet access was greatest in the most deprived areas.
Functional diversity (FD) is an important component of biodiversity that quantifies the difference in functional traits between organisms. However, FD studies are often limited by the availability of ...trait data and FD indices are sensitive to data gaps. The distribution of species abundance and trait data, and its transformation, may further affect the accuracy of indices when data is incomplete. Using an existing approach, we simulated the effects of missing trait data by gradually removing data from a plant, an ant and a bird community dataset (12, 59, and 8 plots containing 62, 297 and 238 species respectively). We ranked plots by FD values calculated from full datasets and then from our increasingly incomplete datasets and compared the ranking between the original and virtually reduced datasets to assess the accuracy of FD indices when used on datasets with increasingly missing data. Finally, we tested the accuracy of FD indices with and without data transformation, and the effect of missing trait data per plot or per the whole pool of species. FD indices became less accurate as the amount of missing data increased, with the loss of accuracy depending on the index. But, where transformation improved the normality of the trait data, FD values from incomplete datasets were more accurate than before transformation. The distribution of data and its transformation are therefore as important as data completeness and can even mitigate the effect of missing data. Since the effect of missing trait values pool-wise or plot-wise depends on the data distribution, the method should be decided case by case. Data distribution and data transformation should be given more careful consideration when designing, analysing and interpreting FD studies, especially where trait data are missing. To this end, we provide the R package "traitor" to facilitate assessments of missing trait data.
In recent years the focus in ecology has shifted from species to a greater emphasis on functional traits. In tandem with this shift, a number of trait databases have been developed covering a range ...of taxa. Here, we introduce the GlobalAnts database.
Globally, ants are dominant, diverse and provide a range of ecosystem functions. The database represents a significant tool for ecology in that it (i) contributes to a global archive of ant traits (morphology, ecology and life history) which complements existing ant databases and (ii) promotes a trait‐based approach in ant and other insect ecology through a broad set of standardised traits.
The GlobalAnts database is unique in that it represents the largest online database of functional traits with associated georeferenced assemblage‐level data (abundance and/or occupancy) for any animal group with 9056 ant species and morphospecies records for entire local assemblages across 4416 sites.
We describe the structure of the database, types of traits included and present a summary of data coverage. The value of the database is demonstrated through an initial examination of trait distributions across subfamilies, continents and biomes.
Striking biogeographic differences in ant traits are highlighted which raise intriguing questions as to the mechanisms generating them.
Aim: Beta diversity describes the variation in species composition between sites and can be used to infer why different species occupy different parts of the globe. It can be viewed in a number of ...ways. First, it can be partitioned into two distinct patterns: turnover and nestedness. Second, it can be investigated from either a species identity or a functional-trait point of view. We aim to document for the first time how these two aspects of beta diversity vary in response to a large environmental gradient. Location: Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains, southern Africa. Methods: We sampled ant assemblages along an extensive elevational gradient (900-3000 m a.s.l.) twice yearly for 7 years, and collected functional-trait information related to the species' dietary and habitat-structure preferences. We used recently developed methods to partition species and functional beta diversity into their turnover and nestedness components. A series of null models were used to test whether the observed beta diversity patterns differed from random expectations. Results: Species beta diversity was driven by turnover, but functional beta diversity was composed of both turnover and nestedness patterns at different parts of the gradient. Null models revealed that deterministic processes were likely to be responsible for the species patterns but that the functional changes were indistinguishable from stochasticity. Main conclusions: Different ant species are found with increasing elevation, but they tend to represent an increasingly nested subset of the available functional strategies. This finding is unique and narrows down the list of possible factors that control ant existence across elevation. We conclude that diet and habitat preferences have little role in structuring ant assemblages in montane environments and that some other factor must be driving the non-random patterns of species turnover. This finding also highlights the importance of distinguishing between different kinds of beta diversity.
Food environment research predominantly focuses on the spatial distribution of out-of-home food outlets. However, the healthiness of food choices available within these outlets has been understudied, ...largely due to resource constraints. In this study, we propose an innovative, low-resource approach to characterise the healthiness of out-of-home food outlets at scale. Menu healthiness scores were calculated for food outlets on JustEat, and a deep learning model was trained to predict these scores for all physical out-of-home outlets in Great Britain, based on outlet names. Our findings highlight the “double burden” of the unhealthy food environment in deprived areas where there tend to be more out-of-home food outlets, and these outlets tend to be less healthy. This methodological advancement provides a nuanced understanding of out-of-home food environments, with potential for automation and broad geographic application.
•Assessed the menu healthiness of 170,000+ out-of-home food outlets in Great Britain.•A deep learning model to predict healthiness of menus of out-of-home food outlets.•More and less healthy out-of-home food outlets in more deprived areas.•Socioeconomic inequalities in menu healthiness most evident for fast-food outlets.
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