Do lianas shape ant communities in an early successional tropical forest?

Almost half of lowland tropical forests are at various stages of regeneration following deforestation or fragmentation. Changes in tree communities along successional gradients have predictable bottom-up effects on consumers. Liana (woody vine) assemblages also change with succession, but their effects on animal succession remain unexplored. Here we used a large-scale liana removal experiment across a forest successional chronosequence (7-31 years) to determine the importance of lianas to ant community structure. We conducted 1088 surveys of ants foraging on and living in trees using tree trunk baiting and hand collecting techniques at 34 paired forest plots, half of which had all lianas removed. Ant species composition, β-diversity, and species richness were not affected by liana removal; however, ant species co-occurrence (the coexistence of two or more species in a single tree) was more frequent in control plots, where lianas were present, vs. removal plots. Forest stand age ...