@article {51118,
	title = {Influence of small-scale disturbances by kangaroo rates on Chihuahuan Desert ants},
	journal = {Oecologia},
	volume = {125},
	year = {2000},
	month = {2000},
	pages = {142-149},
	abstract = {Banner-tailed kangaroo rats (<i>Dipodomys spectabilis</i>) are prominent ecosystem engineers that build large mounds that influence the spatial structuring of fungi, plants, and some ground-dwelling animals.  Ants are diverse and functionally important components of arid ecosystems; some species are also ecosystem engineers.  We investigated the effects of patch disturbances created by <i>D. spectabilis</i> mounds on ant assemblages in a Chihuahuan Desert grassland in southern New Mexico by using pitfall traps in a paired design (mound vs matrix). Although the distrubances did not alter species richness or harbor unique ant communities relative to the matrix, they did alter species composition; the abundances of 6 of 26 species were affected. The distrubances might also act to disrupt spatial patterning of ants caused by other environmental gradients. In contrast to previous investigations of large-scale disturbances, we detected no effects of the disturbances on ants at the fucntional-group level.  Whether ant communities respond to disturbance at a functional-group or within-functional-group level may depend on teh size and intersity fo the disturbance useful function-group schemes also may be scale-dependent, however, or species may respond idiosyncratically.  Interactions between distrubance-generating ammmals and ants may produce a nested spatial structure of patches.},
	keywords = {disturbances, ecosystem engineers, formicidae, heteromyidae, spatial scale},
	url = {/files/bibliography/00-022.pdf},
	author = {Robert L. Schooley and Brandon T Bestelmeyer and J.F. Kelly}
}
