Spatio-temporal variation in ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) communities in leaf-litter and soil layers in a premontane tropical forest

Nearly half of the ant species present in a tropical forest are directly in contact with the ground for nesting or foraging, with evidence of vertical stratification among ground layers (i.e., surface, litter, and soil). How ants in each layer respond to environmental factors and to seasonality remains little studied. We hypothesized that ant species distribution varied spatially and seasonally among the three ground layers and that their...