Ant Diversity in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Ants are hyperdiverse and nearly ubiquitous in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Moreover, they drive diversity in other groups and affect ecosystem processes by dispersing seeds of understory herbs, modifying soil processes, engaging in mutualisms with other species, and preying on still others. The work proposed here extends previous work in three ways: (i) sampling leaf litter ants at at least 11 elevations to encompass more environmental variation, (ii) sampling three particularly diverse sites intensively for several consecutive months, and (iii) continuing to process specimens from Year 1 and Chuck Parker's how to conduct an ATBI pilot study. Through ongoing studies, we hope to make the GSMNP ant fauna one of the best known in the U.S.