Seeds moved by the four most abundant Formica spp. in the Tahoe Basin

Insects are a large proportion of diversity, but long-term data sets rarely exist for modeling the effects of forest management practices on insects and the organisms they co-evolved with. Ants are ecosystem engineers and facilitate seed dispersal, water infiltration, and are major links in food webs. There is a long-term data set designed to elucidate the management effect on ants, plants, small mammals, and birds in the Tahoe Basin in the Sierra Nevada. Working in this research framework, I am collecting soil samples from around ant mounds and identifying the seeds associated with the mounds. This is the initial research needed to elucidate which plants may benefit from ant dispersal and how forest management influences this interaction. The four most abundant Formica species, Formica obscuries, Formica ravida, Formica integroides, and Formica propinqua, will be studied in the summer of 2011. These data will then be integrated into a long-term study of all ant species in the South Lake Tahoe Management Unit. I predict that ants will move seeds based on size and availability.