Ant mosaics in Bornean primary rain forest high canopy depend on spatial scale, time of day, and sampling method

Background: Competitive interactions in biological communities can be thought of as giving rise to “assembly rules” that dictate the species that are able to co-exist. Ant communities in tropical canopies often display a particular pattern, an “ant mosaic”, in which competition between dominant ant species results in a patchwork of mutually exclusive territories. Although ant mosaics have been well-documented in plantation landscapes, their presence in pristine tropical forests remained contentious until recently. Here we assess presence of ant mosaics in a hitherto under-investigated forest stratum, the emergent trees of the high canopy in primary tropical rain forest, and explore how the strength of any ant mosaics is affected by spatial scale, time of day, and sampling method.

Methods: To test whether these factors might impact the detection of ant mosaics in pristine habitats, we sampled ant communities from emergent trees, which rise above the highest canopy layers in lowland di...

研究背景：生物群落内的竞争互作可催生所谓的‘组装规则’，该规则决定了能够实现共存的物种类群。热带林冠中的蚂蚁群落常呈现一种特定模式——‘蚂蚁镶嵌（ant mosaic）’，即优势蚂蚁物种间的竞争会形成彼此互不侵占的领地镶嵌格局。尽管蚂蚁镶嵌格局在人工种植林景观中已有充分的记录，但直到近年，其在原始热带森林中的存在性仍存在争议。本研究针对此前尚未得到充分探究的森林层位——原始热带雨林高林冠层的突出乔木——对蚂蚁镶嵌格局的存在性进行评估，并探究蚂蚁镶嵌格局的强度如何受到空间尺度、日间时段以及采样方法的影响。

研究方法：为了检验这些因素是否会影响原始生境中蚂蚁镶嵌格局的检测效果，我们从低地...最高林冠层之上的突出乔木上采集了蚂蚁群落样本。