Associate Professor New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, New Jersey
Extinction is a profound force that restructures ecosystems. Ant communities comprise species that are morphology and ecology distinct. How are these ecomorphological communities affected by extinction? Are aberrant or "fringe" morphologies more susceptible to extinction or are they persistent over deep time? Through morphometric analyses, I compare contemporary and fossil (~16 million year old) communities from the island of Hispaniola. Although nearly all fossils are attributable to extant neotropical genera, this comparison demonstrates that extinction has been a dominant shaping force in structuring the ecomorphological community. Morphometric analyses also suggest a pattern of non-random extinction targeting specific morphologies, some with long-proposed sensitivity to extinction.