Competition can lead to unexpected patterns in tropical ant communities

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60077344%3A_____%2F16%3A00464729" target="_blank" >RIV/60077344:_____/16:00464729 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/60076658:12310/16:43890872

Result on the web

<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1146609X16300832" target="_blank" >http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1146609X16300832</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actao.2016.06.001" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.actao.2016.06.001</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Competition can lead to unexpected patterns in tropical ant communities

Original language description

Ecological communities are structured by competitive, predatory, mutualistic and parasitic interactions combined with chance events. Separating deterministic from stochastic processes is possible, but finding statistical evidence for specific biological interactions is challenging. We attempt to solve this problem for ant communities nesting in epiphytic bird's nest ferns (Asplenium nidus) in Borneo's lowland rainforest. By recording the frequencies with which each and every single ant species occurred together, we were able to test statistically for patterns associated with inter specific competition. We found evidence for competition, but the resulting co-occurrence pattern was the opposite of what we expected. Rather than detecting species segregation the classical hallmark of competition we found species aggregation. Moreover, our approach of testing individual pairwise interactions mostly revealed spatially positive rather than negative associations. Significant negative interactions were only detected among large ants, and among species of the subfamily Ponerinae. Remarkably, the results from this study, and from a corroborating analysis of ant communities known to be structured by competition, suggest that competition within the ants leads to species aggregation rather than segregation. We believe this unexpected result is linked with the displacement of species following asymmetric competition. We conclude that analysing co-occurrence frequencies across complete species assemblages, separately for each species, and for each unique pairwise combination of species, represents a subtle yet powerful way of detecting structure and compartmentalisation in ecological communities.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_x - Unclassified - Peer-reviewed scientific article (Jimp, Jsc and Jost)

CEP classification

EH - Ecology - communities

OECD FORD branch

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Project

Result was created during the realization of more than one project. More information in the Projects tab.

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2016

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Acta Oecologica-International Journal of Ecology

ISSN

1146-609X

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

75

Issue of the periodical within the volume

AUG 01

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

24-34

UT code for WoS article

000381592200004

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-84976359339