Data from: Tropical arboreal ants form dominance hierarchies over nesting resources

Interspecific dominance hierarchies have been widely reported across
animal systems. High-ranking species are expected to monopolize more
resources than low-ranking species via resource monopolization. In some
ant species, dominance hierarchies have been used to explain species
coexistence and community structure. However, it remains unclear whether
or in what contexts dominance hierarchies occur in tropical ant
communities. This study seeks to examine whether arboreal twig-nesting
ants competing for nesting resources in a Mexican coffee agricultural
ecosystem are arranged in a linear dominance hierarchy. We described the
dominance relationships among 10 species of ants and measured the
uncertainty and steepness of the inferred dominance hierarchy. We also
assessed the orderliness of the hierarchy by considering species
interactions at the network level. Based on the randomized Elo-rating
method, we found that the twig-nesting ant species Myrmelachista mexicana
ranked highest in the ranking, while Pseudomyrmex ejectus was ranked as
the lowest in the hierarchy. Our results show that the hierarchy was
intermediate in its steepness, suggesting that the probability of higher
ranked species winning contests against lower ranked species was fairly
high. Motif analysis and significant excess of triads further revealed
that the species networks were largely transitive. This study highlights
that some tropical arboreal ant communities organize into dominance
hierarchies.