Today’s Interview with an Author is with Dr. Katharine Stuble, the first author on “Ant-mediated seed dispersal in a warmed world” which we published this month. We were very interested in hearing more about her work and experience with us.
Katie Stuble is a postdoc at the Oklahoma Biological Survey at the University of Oklahoma. She got her PhD at the University of Tennessee. Her research focuses on the potential for global change to alter ecological systems, and she typically uses natural and manipulative experiments with ants to address these types of questions.
PJ: Tell us a bit about the research you published with us, and why it is interesting.
As the climate changes, ecosystem processes are likely to be altered. Field manipulations of temperature can be useful in beginning to understand what sorts of changes in we might expect. We manipulated temperature at two eastern deciduous forest sites, basically warming up patches of forest to understand how ant foraging, and ultimately seed dispersal, might be affected as the climate changes. Ants are an important agent of dispersal for many herbaceous plant species in eastern deciduous forests, as well as other habitats around the world. Disruption of this mutualism has the potential to provide an indirect mechanism by which climate change may alter plant communities.
PJ:What kinds of lessons do you hope the public takes away from the research?
Temperature is an incredibly important driver of so many ecological processes. Here we demonstrate that ant thermal tolerance was a good predictor of seed removal across a range of ant species. Despite this, we were surprised to find that experimental warming in this study did not seem to disrupt overall levels of seed dispersal by ants. I think this result sheds light on how difficult it can be to predict the responses of specific processes to climate change.
PJ: What is next in your research?
I am continuing to research how the changing climate may alter earth’s ecosystems. A particular interest is in the indirect pathways by which biotic interactions may alternatively mitigate or exacerbate the impacts of warming. Understanding the complex nature of the climate’s impacts on ecosystems will hopefully aid in our ability to predict future impacts of climate change.
PJ: How did you first hear about PeerJ?
Before PeerJ even published its first articles, I met one of the journal’s editors at a scientific conference. He described an innovative and affordable open-access alternative to the traditional journals.
PJ: What was your experience of the PeerJ publishing process?
The publishing process was incredibly quick. My first round of reviews came back in only a couple of weeks, and that was over the New Year.
PJ: Was there anything that surprised you with your overall experience with us?
I was surprised by the incredibly high caliber of academic editors at PeerJ.
PJ: Thank you for your time!
Experience the PeerJ process for yourself, and take advantage of our free publication offer (when you also submit a PrePrint) through the last day of March.