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UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Selenium in Ant Communities: Implications of Contamination on Ecosystem Ecology, Diversity, and Invasive Potential Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4b296412 Author De La Riva, Deborah Grace Publication Date 2016 Supplemental Material https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4b296412#supplemental Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Selenium in Ant Communities: Implications of Contamination on Ecosystem Ecology, Diversity and Invasive Potential A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Entomology by Deborah Grace De La Riva June 2016 Dissertation Committee: Dr. John T. Trumble, Chairperson Dr. Ring T. Cardé Dr. Dong-Hwan Choe Copyright by Deborah Grace De La Riva 2016 The Dissertation of Deborah Grace De La Riva is approved: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments I would like to first and foremost thank my graduate advisor, Dr. John T. Trumble, for his commitment to my academic success over the past five years. I understand that taking on a graduate student is large investment of time, effort and finances and I greatly appreciate the opportunities provided to me through his leadership. I’m very grateful for the many opportunities I had to travel to professional conferences in order to present my research and network with others in my field. I would also like to thank John for agreeing to send me to the 2012 Ants of the Southwest Course in Portal, AZ. The field collection and identification techniques learned not only assisted with my research, but are also skills that will follow me after I graduate. I would also like to thank other faculty and other researchers who were instrumental in providing guidance and support up to this point. My gratitude goes out to Drs. Ring Cardé and Dong-Hwan Choe who served on my dissertation committee and provided both suggestions and assistance since I began the program. I would also like to thank Dr. David Parker who served on my guidance committee and generously allowed us access to his laboratory in order to conduct the chemical analysis portion of my research. My thanks is also extended to Drs. Jocelyn Millar and Michael Adams for their encouragement, suggestions, and ultimately deeming me worthy to advance to candidacy during my qualifying exam. I appreciate the help and support of Drs. Woody Smith, Guntram von Kiparski, and David Lyons from the Environmental Sciences Department who provided guidance and assistance for completing my chemical analyses. A huge thank you also goes out to the faculty, Drs. Bradley Mullens, Marlene Zuk, and Don iv Lotter, whose mentorship during my undergraduate studies played a large role in my desire to obtain a graduate degree. Thank you to Drs. Bradley Mullens, Marlene Zuk, Gregory Walker and Thomas Perring who also provided encouragement and recommended me to the program. A special thanks goes out to Dr. Brian Gray, a previous graduate student in the Zuk lab who also provided excellent mentorship and encouragement to me as an undergraduate. I would also like to thank the UC Riverside LEADS summer program, under the direction of Maria Franco-Augilar, for the resources and skills they provided towards succeeding in graduate school. The members of the Trumble Lab, past and present, were also been instrumental in my ability to complete this dissertation. Thank you Bill Carson, Greg Kund, Beatriz G. Vindiola, Sean Prager, John Diaz-Montano, Kris Gilbert, Tracy Castañeda, Nicole Drew, Haley Drew, Nicholas Rivas, Mike Jones, Isaac Esquivel, Sammy Gilbert, Chris Tran, Ning Di and Kai Zhang for their assistance with chemical orders, experimental set-up, manuscript revisions, colony maintenance, data collection, chemical analysis, statistical analysis and most of all, their friendship. I would especially like to thank the graduate students, past and present, who provided their wisdom, training, support and friendship throughout my graduate career: Dr. Kristen Hladun, Dr. Christina Mogren, and Marcus Pennington. I would also like to acknowledge the other students in my cohort who were supportive during our core classes, qualifying exams, and throughout my time in the program: Amy Murillo, Fatemeh Ganjisaffar, Chris Shogren, Max Collignon and Erich Schoeller. Drs. Les Greenberg, Michael Rust and Ryan Neff also deserve recognition for training me in the initial ant colony collection and set-up process. v I would also like to thank my family and friends for all of their love, prayers and support over my entire education. A special thanks goes to my partner, Matthew Woodley for his unwavering patience, love and support over the last 10 years. Chapter 2 was previously published with open access as: Deborah G. De La Riva, Beatriz G. Vindiola, Tracy N. Castañeda, David R. Parker, and John T. Trumble (2014) Impact of selenium on mortality, bioaccumulation and feeding deterrence in the invasive Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Science of the Total Environment 481: 446-452. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.02.060. It is included in this dissertation with permission from Elsevier. Co-authors Beatriz G. Vindiola and Tracy Castañeda assisted with a large portion of data collection and chemical analysis. Dr. David Parker provided the laboratory resources, equipment and direction for the chemical analysis. Dr. John T. Trumble provided the direction and supervision for this project. Chapter 4 was previously published as: Deborah G. De La Riva and John T. Trumble (2016) Selenium exposure results in reduced reproduction in an invasive species and altered competitive behavior for a native ant species. Environmental Pollution 213: 888-894. DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2016.03.045. It has been included in this dissertation with permission from Elsevier. John T. Trumble provided the direction and supervision for this research project. The research conducted in this dissertation was funded in part by the UC Riverside Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship, UC Riverside Diversity Award, UC Riverside Department of Entomology Outreach Program, various scholarships awarded from the Imperial County Farm Bureau, and the UC Dissertation-Year Fellowship vi Award. Travel grants for conferences were covered in part by the UC Riverside Graduate Student Association and the Department of Entomology. vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Selenium in Ant Communities: Implications of Contamination on Ecosystem Ecology, Diversity and Invasive Potential by Deborah Grace De La Riva Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Entomology University of California, Riverside, June 2016 Dr. John T. Trumble, Chairperson Ants have often been described as keystone species for the critical roles they play that contribute to ecosystem functioning. Evidence from Europe and Australia has improved our understanding of the impacts of disturbance, including pollution, on native ant communities. However, there is a lack of information available for North American ant communities. The overall goal of this dissertation was to assess the effects of selenium, a globally widespread element and environmental contaminant in certain regions of the U.S., on the survival, behavior and reproduction of the invasive Argentine ant, Linepithema humile. The findings of this research highlight the unexpected role of pollution to act as a potential barrier to range expansion for invasive ant species. Chronic ingestion of four environmentally common forms of selenium at environmentally reported concentrations, were found to cause mortality among Argentine ant workers. The extent of mortality was found to be dependent on the form of selenium. In addition, mortality and bioaccumulation of selenium increased with the duration of exposure and concentration. Furthermore, Argentine ants were not deterred by lethal concentrations of selenium in the diet, regardless of background sucrose concentrations. viii The transfer of selenium via a tri-trophic system was assessed. Aphid honeydew, a major component of the diet for Argentine ants in their introduced range, was found to serve as a route of selenium transfer to ant colonies. Sub-lethal concentrations of selenium were found to impact reproduction for Argentine ant colonies, where colonies exposed to selenium sucrose diets experienced reduced queen fecundity, queen mortality, and reduced viability for offspring. Selenium did not alter the competitive ability of Argentine ant workers during interactions with the native species, Dorymyrmex bicolor, but sub-lethal concentrations did contribute to a longer food discovery time for the native species. Native ant communities residing in a selenium-contaminated habitat were also documented. Ant species composition differed across sites, but selenium did not appear to have an overall impact on diversity. Ant concentrations differed by species, but were comparable to levels found among other arthropod trophic groups. Results suggest that these ants residing have evolved a high tolerance to this particular pollutant. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction……………………………………………………..…………….1 Dissertation Objectives…………………………………………………………..12 References...……………………………………………………………………...13 Chapter
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