Research: Can environmental complexity affect ant traits?

From Science Direct:

“We tested whether the environmental complexity in a vegetation gradient can predict the morphological composition of ground-dwelling ant assemblages. Increasing environmental complexity increased body size, relative mandible length, and decreased eye size of ant species. Our data reveal a clear response pattern of morphological composition of ground-dwelling ant assemblages to the environmental gradient. The environmental complexity can act favouring species with certain characteristics associated with certain habitats.”

To the Science Direct article >