Ant diversity patterns across tropical elevation gradients: effects of sampling method and subcommunity

Local diversity may be influenced by niche assembly processes involving competition for limited resources, or by niche conservatism and the length of time clades have had to diversify. Mid‐elevation peaks in ant diversity on wet forest elevational gradients are most consistent with niche conservatism effects. However, it is possible that subsets of the ant community vary in the degree to which niche assembly processes are important, and this may...