@article{just_nichols_dunn_2019, title={Human indoor climate preferences approximate specific geographies}, volume={6}, ISSN={["2054-5703"]}, url={https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180695}, DOI={10.1098/rsos.180695}, abstractNote={Human engineering of the outdoors led to the development of the indoor niche, including home construction. However, it is unlikely that domicile construction mechanics are under direct selection for humans. Nonetheless, our preferences within indoor environments are, or once were, consequential to our fitness. The research of human homes does not usually consider human evolution, and, therefore, we are without previous predictions about indoor climate preference. We worked with citizen scientists to collect indoor climate data from homes ( n = 37) across the USA. We then compared these data to recent global terrestrial climate data (0.5° grid cells, n = 67 420) using a climate dissimilarity index. We also compared some climate-related physiological parameters (e.g. thermoneutral zone (TNZ)) between humans and a selection of non-human primates. On average, our study homes were most similar in climate to the outdoor conditions of west central Kenya. We found that the indoor climates of our study homes largely matched the TNZ of humans and other primates. Overall, we identified the geographical distribution of the global outdoor climate that is most similar to the interiors of our study homes and summarized study home indoor climate preferences.}, number={3}, journal={ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE}, author={Just, Michael G. and Nichols, Lauren M. and Dunn, Robert R.}, year={2019}, month={Mar} }
 @article{gebert_delgado-baquerizo_oliverio_webster_nichols_honda_chan_adjemian_dunn_fierer_2018, title={Ecological Analyses of Mycobacteria in Showerhead Biofilms and Their Relevance to Human Health}, volume={9}, ISSN={["2150-7511"]}, url={https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01614-18}, DOI={10.1128/mBio.01614-18}, abstractNote={Bacteria thrive in showerheads and throughout household water distribution systems. While most of these bacteria are innocuous, some are potential pathogens, including members of the genus Mycobacterium that can cause nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung infection, an increasing threat to public health. We found that showerheads in households across the United States and Europe often harbor abundant mycobacterial communities that vary in composition depending on geographic location, water chemistry, and water source, with households receiving water treated with chlorine disinfectants having particularly high abundances of certain mycobacteria. The regions in the United States where NTM lung infections are most common were the same regions where pathogenic mycobacteria were most prevalent in showerheads, highlighting the important role of showerheads in the transmission of NTM infections.}, number={5}, journal={MBIO}, author={Gebert, Matthew J. and Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel and Oliverio, Angela M. and Webster, Tara M. and Nichols, Lauren M. and Honda, Jennifer R. and Chan, Edward D. and Adjemian, Jennifer and Dunn, Robert R. and Fierer, Noah}, year={2018} }
 @article{diamond_chick_penick_nichols_cahan_dunn_ellison_sandersk_gotelli_2017, title={Heat tolerance predicts the importance of species interaction effects as the climate changes}, volume={57}, ISSN={["1557-7023"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85029143849&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1093/icb/icx008}, abstractNote={Few studies have quantified the relative importance of direct effects of climate change on communities versus indirect effects that are mediated thorough species interactions, and the limited evidence is conflicting. Trait-based approaches have been popular in studies of climate change, but can they be used to estimate direct versus indirect effects? At the species level, thermal tolerance is a trait that is often used to predict winners and losers under scenarios of climate change. But thermal tolerance might also inform when species interactions are likely to be important because only subsets of species will be able to exploit the available warmer climatic niche space, and competition may intensify in the remaining, compressed cooler climatic niche space. Here, we explore the relative roles of the direct effects of temperature change and indirect effects of species interactions on forest ant communities that were heated as part of a large-scale climate manipulation at high- and low-latitude sites in eastern North America. Overall, we found mixed support for the importance of negative species interactions (competition), but found that the magnitude of these interaction effects was predictable based on the heat tolerance of the focal species. Forager abundance and nest site occupancy of heat-intolerant species were more often influenced by negative interactions with other species than by direct effects of temperature. Our findings suggest that measures of species-specific heat tolerance may roughly predict when species interactions will influence responses to global climate change.}, number={1}, journal={INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY}, author={Diamond, Sarah E. and Chick, Lacy and Penick, Clint A. and Nichols, Lauren M. and Cahan, Sara Helms and Dunn, Robert R. and Ellison, Aaron M. and Sandersk, Nathan J. and Gotelli, Nicholas J.}, year={2017}, month={Jul}, pages={112–120} }
 @article{diamond_nichols_pelini_penick_barber_cahan_dunn_ellison_sanders_gotelli_2016, title={Climatic warming destabilizes forest ant communities}, volume={2}, ISSN={2375-2548}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1600842}, DOI={10.1126/sciadv.1600842}, abstractNote={A field-based climate warming experiment reveals a loss of dynamical community stability due to altered species interactions.}, number={10}, journal={Science Advances}, publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)}, author={Diamond, Sarah E. and Nichols, Lauren M. and Pelini, Shannon L. and Penick, Clint A. and Barber, Grace W. and Cahan, Sara Helms and Dunn, Robert R. and Ellison, Aaron M. and Sanders, Nathan J. and Gotelli, Nicholas J.}, year={2016}, month={Oct}, pages={e1600842} }
 @article{lucky_savage_nichols_castracani_shell_grasso_mori_dunn_2014, title={Ecologists, educators, and writers collaborate with the public to assess backyard diversity in The School of Ants Project}, volume={5}, ISSN={["2150-8925"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84905233273&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1890/es13-00364.1}, abstractNote={Citizen science can generate data that would not exist otherwise while increasing public scientific literacy. However, the quality and use of citizen science data have been criticized in the recent ecological literature. We need an approach that advances eco-evolutionary understanding, achieves education goals and incorporates public participation into as many aspects of the scientific process as possible. We collaborated with public participants to make new discoveries about the distribution and ecology of ants while informing the next studies that participants and scientists might perform together. We implemented the School of Ants (SoA) program in which participants sample ants that are identified by taxonomic experts. Using a comprehensive framework that meets the needs of multiple agents, we also developed outreach materials about ant biology, collaborated with educators to incorporate SoA into classroom science, and launched an international SoA module in Italy. In the first 17 months, SoA volunteers collected ants at 500 unique sites across the USA-including all 50 states and Washington, D.C. To address concerns about the validity of citizen scientist-derived data, we conducted a ground truthing trial that confirmed that trained and untrained volunteers were equally effective at collecting ants. Data from SoA samples indicate that ant diversity varies across wide geographic scales and that there can be high levels of native ant diversity where people live. SoA volunteers collected 7 exotic and 107 native ant species. Although exotic ants were common, ants native to North America occurred in ∼70% of all sites. Many of the ants common in backyards were species that tend to be very poorly studied. For example, citizen scientists documented a range extension of more than 2000 miles for the Asian Needle Ant, Pachycondyla chinensis. Using SoA data as a starting point, we collaborated with a science writer to produce a free, interactive iBook about the common ants in North America; the book included distribution maps such as that for P. chinensis informed by participant collections. Moving forward, we plan to leverage this existing framework to address more complex ecological and evolutionary questions in partnership with our public participants.}, number={7}, journal={ECOSPHERE}, author={Lucky, Andrea and Savage, Amy M. and Nichols, Lauren M. and Castracani, Cristina and Shell, Leonora and Grasso, Donato A. and Mori, Alessandra and Dunn, Robert R.}, year={2014}, month={Jul} }
 @article{pelini_diamond_nichols_stuble_ellison_sanders_dunn_gotelli_2014, title={Geographic differences in effects of experimental warming on ant species diversity and community composition}, volume={5}, ISSN={["2150-8925"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84919786449&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1890/es14-00143.1}, abstractNote={Ecological communities are being reshaped by climatic change. Losses and gains of species will alter community composition and diversity but these effects are likely to vary geographically and may be hard to predict from uncontrolled “natural experiments”. In this study, we used open-top warming chambers to simulate a range of warming scenarios for ground-nesting ant communities at a northern (Harvard Forest, MA) and southern (Duke Forest, NC) study site in the eastern US. After 2.5 years of experimental warming, we found no significant effects of accumulated growing degree days or soil moisture on ant diversity or community composition at the northern site, but a decrease in asymptotic species richness and changes in community composition at the southern site. However, fewer than 10% of the species at either site responded significantly to the warming treatments. Our results contrast with those of a comparable natural experiment conducted along a nearby elevational gradient, in which species richness and composition responded strongly to changes in temperature and other correlated variables. Together, our findings provide some support for the prediction that warming will have a larger negative effect on ecological communities in warmer locales at lower latitudes and suggest that predicted responses to warming may differ between controlled field experiments and unmanipulated thermal gradients.}, number={10}, journal={ECOSPHERE}, author={Pelini, S. L. and Diamond, S. E. and Nichols, L. M. and Stuble, K. L. and Ellison, A. M. and Sanders, N. J. and Dunn, R. R. and Gotelli, N. J.}, year={2014}, month={Oct} }
 @article{burt_dunn_nichols_sanders_2014, title={Interactions in a warmer world: effects of experimental warming, conspecific density, and herbivory on seedling dynamics}, volume={5}, ISSN={["2150-8925"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84900003628&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1890/es13-00198.1}, abstractNote={Many effects of a changing climate for organisms, populations, and ecosystems are already apparent. Less studied are the effects of increases in temperature on species interactions. While warming may potentially alter interactions among species, species interactions may also mediate individual species responses to ongoing climatic change. In this experiment we manipulated temperature in field-based, open-top chambers for three years to examine the relationship between biotic interactions and climatic warming on the population dynamics of seedlings of Quercus alba. We investigated the effect of warming on rates of insect herbivory on Q. alba seedlings. Additionally, we assessed the relative effects of increasing temperature, insect herbivory, and conspecific density on seedling survival. We found two unexpected results. First, we observed a negative relationship between temperature and levels of insect herbivory during each year of the experiment. Second, higher levels of herbivory were associated with higher rates of survival to the second year of the study. Although we never detected a direct effect of conspecific density on seedling survival, herbivory and conspecific seedling density did interact to influence Q. alba seedling survival early in the experiment. Taken together, our results indicate species responses to climatic warming may be contingent on intra- and interspecific interactions, sometimes in complicated and counter-intuitive ways.}, number={1}, journal={ECOSPHERE}, author={Burt, Melissa A. and Dunn, Robert R. and Nichols, Lauren M. and Sanders, Nathan J.}, year={2014}, month={Jan} }
 @article{diamond_nichols_mccoy_hirsch_pelini_sanders_ellison_gotelli_dunn_2012, title={A physiological trait-based approach to predicting the responses of species to experimental climate warming}, volume={93}, ISSN={["1939-9170"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84869193184&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1890/11-2296.1}, abstractNote={Physiological tolerance of environmental conditions can influence species-level responses to climate change. Here, we used species-specific thermal tolerances to predict the community responses of ant species to experimental forest-floor warming at the northern and southern boundaries of temperate hardwood forests in eastern North America. We then compared the predictive ability of thermal tolerance vs. correlative species distribution models (SDMs) which are popular forecasting tools for modeling the effects of climate change. Thermal tolerances predicted the responses of 19 ant species to experimental climate warming at the southern site, where environmental conditions are relatively close to the ants' upper thermal limits. In contrast, thermal tolerances did not predict the responses of the six species in the northern site, where environmental conditions are relatively far from the ants' upper thermal limits. Correlative SDMs were not predictive at either site. Our results suggest that, in environments close to a species' physiological limits, physiological trait-based measurements can successfully forecast the responses of species to future conditions. Although correlative SDMs may predict large-scale responses, such models may not be accurate for predicting site-level responses.}, number={11}, journal={ECOLOGY}, author={Diamond, Sarah E. and Nichols, Lauren M. and McCoy, Neil and Hirsch, Christopher and Pelini, Shannon L. and Sanders, Nathan J. and Ellison, Aaron M. and Gotelli, Nicholas J. and Dunn, Robert R.}, year={2012}, month={Nov}, pages={2305–2312} }