Drought and presence of ants can influence hemiptera in tropical leaf litter

AbstractClimate change is predicted to impact tropical rain forests, with droughts becoming more frequent and more severe in some regions. We currently have a poor understanding of how increased drought will change the functioning of tropical rain forest. In particular, tropical rain forest invertebrates, which are numerous and biologically important, may respond to drought in different ways across trophic levels. Ants are a diverse group that carry out important ecosystem processes, shaping ecosystem structure and function through predation and competition, which can influence multiple trophic levels. Hemiptera are a mega‐diverse order, abundant in tropical rain forests and are ecologically important. To understand the roles of ants in exerting predation and competition pressure on invertebrates in tropical rain forests during drought and a post‐drought period, we established a large‐scale ecosystem manipulation experiment in Maliau Basin Conservation Area in Malaysian Borneo, suppressing the activity of ants on four 0.25 ha plots over a two‐year period. We sampled hemipterans found in the leaf litter during a drought (July 2015) and a post‐drought period (September 2016) period. We found significant shifts in the assemblage of hemipterans sampled from the leaf litter following ant suppression. Specifically, for ant‐suppression plots, the species richness and abundance of herbivorous hemipterans increased only during the post‐drought period. For predatory hemipterans, abundance increased with ant‐suppression regardless of drought conditions, and we found marginal evidence for a species richness increase during the post‐drought period with little or no change in the drought period. These results illustrate how ants in tropical forests structure invertebrate communities and how these effects may vary with climatic variation.Abstract in Malay is available with online material.</jats:p

Familiarity with, perceptions of and attitudes toward butterflies of urban park users in megacities across East and Southeast Asia.

Peer reviewed: TruePerceptions of, and attitudes toward, wildlife are influenced by exposure to, and direct experiences with, nature. Butterflies are a conspicuous and ubiquitous component of urban nature across megacities that are highly urbanized with little opportunity for human-nature interactions. We evaluated public familiarity with, perceptions of and attitudes toward butterflies across nine megacities in East and Southeast Asia through face-to-face interviews with 1774 urban park users. A total of 79% of respondents had seen butterflies in their cities mostly in urban parks, indicating widespread familiarity with butterflies. Those who had seen butterflies also had higher perceptions of butterflies, whereas greater than 50% of respondents had positive attitudes toward butterflies. Frequent visits to natural places in urban neighbourhoods was associated with (i) sightings of caterpillars, indicating increased familiarity with urban wildlife, and (ii) increased connectedness to nature. We found two significant positive relationships: (i) between connectedness to nature and attitudes toward butterflies and (ii) between connectedness to nature and perceptions of butterflies, firmly linking parks users' thoughts and feelings about butterflies with their view of nature. This suggests that butterflies in urban parks can play a key role in building connectedness to nature and consequently pro-environmental behaviours and support for wildlife conservation among urban residents