@article{menke_guenard_sexton_weiser_dunn_silverman_2011, title={Urban areas may serve as habitat and corridors for dry-adapted, heat tolerant species; an example from ants}, volume={14}, ISSN={["1573-1642"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-79955054212&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1007/s11252-010-0150-7}, number={2}, journal={URBAN ECOSYSTEMS}, author={Menke, Sean B. and Guenard, Benoit and Sexton, Joseph O. and Weiser, Michael D. and Dunn, Robert R. and Silverman, Jules}, year={2011}, month={Jun}, pages={135–163} }
 @article{weiser_sanders_agosti_andersen_ellison_fisher_gibb_gotelli_gove_gross_et al._2010, title={Canopy and litter ant assemblages share similar climate-species density relationships}, volume={6}, ISSN={["1744-9561"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-78649884769&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1098/rsbl.2010.0151}, abstractNote={Tropical forest canopies house most of the globe's diversity, yet little is known about global patterns and drivers of canopy diversity. Here, we present models of ant species density, using climate, abundance and habitat (i.e. canopy versus litter) as predictors. Ant species density is positively associated with temperature and precipitation, and negatively (or non-significantly) associated with two metrics of seasonality, precipitation seasonality and temperature range. Ant species density was significantly higher in canopy samples, but this difference disappeared once abundance was considered. Thus, apparent differences in species density between canopy and litter samples are probably owing to differences in abundance-diversity relationships, and not differences in climate-diversity relationships. Thus, it appears that canopy and litter ant assemblages share a common abundance-diversity relationship influenced by similar but not identical climatic drivers.}, number={6}, journal={BIOLOGY LETTERS}, author={Weiser, Michael D. and Sanders, Nathan J. and Agosti, Donat and Andersen, Alan N. and Ellison, Aaron M. and Fisher, Brian L. and Gibb, Heloise and Gotelli, Nicholas J. and Gove, Aaron D. and Gross, Kevin and et al.}, year={2010}, month={Dec}, pages={769–772} }
 @article{menke_booth_dunn_schal_vargo_silverman_2010, title={Is It Easy to Be Urban? Convergent Success in Urban Habitats among Lineages of a Widespread Native Ant}, volume={5}, ISSN={1932-6203}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009194}, DOI={10.1371/journal.pone.0009194}, abstractNote={The most rapidly expanding habitat globally is the urban habitat, yet the origin and life histories of the populations of native species that inhabit this habitat remain poorly understood. We use DNA barcoding of the COI gene in the widespread native pest ant Tapinoma sessile to test two hypotheses regarding the origin of urban populations and traits associated with their success. First, we determine if urban samples of T. sessile have a single origin from natural populations by looking at patterns of haplotype clustering from across their range. Second, we examine whether polygynous colony structure--a trait associated with invasion success--is correlated with urban environments, by studying the lineage dependence of colony structure. Our phylogenetic analysis of 49 samples identified four well supported geographic clades. Within clades, Kimura-2 parameter pairwise genetic distances revealed <2.3% variation; however, between clade genetic distances were 7.5-10.0%, suggesting the possibility of the presence of cryptic species. Our results indicate that T. sessile has successfully colonized urban environments multiple times. Additionally, polygynous colony structure is a highly plastic trait across habitat, clade, and haplotype. In short, T. sessile has colonized urban habitats repeatedly and appears to do so using life history strategies already present in more natural populations. Whether similar results hold for other species found in urban habitats has scarcely begun to be considered.}, number={2}, journal={PLoS ONE}, publisher={Public Library of Science (PLoS)}, author={Menke, Sean B. and Booth, Warren and Dunn, Robert R. and Schal, Coby and Vargo, Edward L. and Silverman, Jules}, editor={Moreau, Corrie S.Editor}, year={2010}, month={Feb}, pages={e9194} }
 @article{menke_suarez_tillberg_chou_holway_2010, title={Trophic ecology of the invasive argentine ant: spatio-temporal variation in resource assimilation and isotopic enrichment}, volume={164}, number={3}, journal={Oecologia}, author={Menke, S. B. and Suarez, A. V. and Tillberg, C. V. and Chou, C. T. and Holway, D. A.}, year={2010}, pages={763–771} }
 @article{menke_holway_fisher_jetz_2009, title={Characterizing and predicting species distributions across environments and scales: Argentine ant occurrences in the eye of the beholder}, volume={18}, ISSN={["1466-822X"]}, DOI={10.1111/j.1466-8238.2008.00420.x}, abstractNote={ABSTRACT Aim Species distribution models (SDMs) or, more specifically, ecological niche models (ENMs) are a useful and rapidly proliferating tool in ecology and global change biology. ENMs attempt to capture associations between a species and its environment and are often used to draw biological inferences, to predict potential occurrences in unoccupied regions and to forecast future distributions under environmental change. The accuracy of ENMs, however, hinges critically on the quality of occurrence data. ENMs often use haphazardly collected data rather than data collected across the full spectrum of existing environmental conditions. Moreover, it remains unclear how processes affecting ENM predictions operate at different spatial scales. The scale (i.e. grain size) of analysis may be dictated more by the sampling regime than by biologically meaningful processes. The aim of our study is to jointly quantify how issues relating to region and scale affect ENM predictions using an economically important and ecologically damaging invasive species, the Argentine ant ( Linepithema humile ). Location California, USA. Methods We analysed the relationship between sampling sufficiency, regional differences in environmental parameter space and cell size of analysis and resampling environmental layers using two independently collected sets of presence/absence data. Differences in variable importance were determined using model averaging and logistic regression. Model accuracy was measured with area under the curve (AUC) and Cohen's kappa. Results We first demonstrate that insufficient sampling of environmental parameter space can cause large errors in predicted distributions and biological interpretation. Models performed best when they were parametrized with data that sufficiently sampled environmental parameter space. Second, we show that altering the spatial grain of analysis changes the relative importance of different environmental variables. These changes apparently result from how environmental constraints and the sampling distributions of environmental variables change with spatial grain. Conclusions These findings have clear relevance for biological inference. Taken together, our results illustrate potentially general limitations for ENMs, especially when such models are used to predict species occurrences in novel environments. We offer basic methodological and conceptual guidelines for appropriate sampling and scale matching.}, number={1}, journal={GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY}, author={Menke, S. B. and Holway, D. A. and Fisher, R. N. and Jetz, W.}, year={2009}, month={Jan}, pages={50–63} }
 @article{dunn_agosti_andersen_arnan_bruhl_cerda_ellison_fisher_fitzpatrick_gibb_et al._2009, title={Climatic drivers of hemispheric asymmetry in global patterns of ant species richness}, volume={12}, ISSN={["1461-023X"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-62249209482&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01291.x}, abstractNote={Although many taxa show a latitudinal gradient in richness, the relationship between latitude and species richness is often asymmetrical between the northern and southern hemispheres. Here we examine the latitudinal pattern of species richness across 1003 local ant assemblages. We find latitudinal asymmetry, with southern hemisphere sites being more diverse than northern hemisphere sites. Most of this asymmetry could be explained statistically by differences in contemporary climate. Local ant species richness was positively associated with temperature, but negatively (although weakly) associated with temperature range and precipitation. After contemporary climate was accounted for, a modest difference in diversity between hemispheres persisted, suggesting that factors other than contemporary climate contributed to the hemispherical asymmetry. The most parsimonious explanation for this remaining asymmetry is that greater climate change since the Eocene in the northern than in the southern hemisphere has led to more extinctions in the northern hemisphere with consequent effects on local ant species richness.}, number={4}, journal={ECOLOGY LETTERS}, author={Dunn, Robert R. and Agosti, Donat and Andersen, Alan N. and Arnan, Xavier and Bruhl, Carsten A. and Cerda, Xim and Ellison, Aaron M. and Fisher, Brian L. and Fitzpatrick, Matthew C. and Gibb, Heloise and et al.}, year={2009}, month={Apr}, pages={324–333} }