We will assess how species respond to climatic fluctuations and differential resource limitation when competing for resources in familiar and novel environments. This will allow us to increase our understanding of how key ecosystem function provider species (ants) will respond to a rapidly changing climate, and if any changes are predictable. We will test these interactions along five bioclimatic transects throughout Australia to integrate ecological, physiological and behavioural responses of ecosystem function providers to climatic fluctuations. Here we will be using field studies of competition, a transplant experiment to move ant nests into novel environments to assess their abilities to adapt and respond to climatic variation, a field experiment to assess what species are limited by salt (a key limiting resource), sugars, proteins, and extra ambient heat across the biogeographic transects. less ↑