Disentangling the factors that shape bromeliad and ant communities in the canopies of cocoa agroforestry and preserved Atlantic Forest

In tropical forest canopies, host tree characteristics shape epiphyte communities, and both host tree characteristics and epiphytes determine invertebrate communities, e.g., ants. Tree height is among the factors most often mentioned as a strong predictor for both bromeliad and ant communities. However, many factors interact dynamically in shaping the tree-bromeliad-ant association. Here, we investigated the effects of the host tree and canopy structural characteristics on both bromeliads and ants. We sampled bromeliads on 180 trees and ants in 360 bromeliads living on a subset of 60 of those trees in a continuum of native forest fragments and agroforestry systems in the Atlantic Forest, a Brazilian biodiversity hotspot. We found that the host trees’ crown area had a positive effect on the abundance of bromeliads. Also, the introduced tree species had higher abundance of bromeliads than native tree species. Moreover, we found that the ant species composition was different between native...