Seral changes in ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) assemblages in the sub‐boreal forests of British Columbia

Abstract

Abstract Despite their ubiquity, ant assemblages in the sub‐boreal forests of British Columbia, Canada, are largely unknown. Ant assemblages and area densities of species colonies were characterised in lodgepole pine‐leading forests through strip‐plot hand sampling of coarse woody debris (CWD), with species richness supplementation through pitfall trapping and mini‐Winkler sampling of forest floor litter, over five seral ages. Seventeen species of ants were identified across all seral ages. Ant assemblage dissimilarity (non‐metric multidimensional scaling) determined from CWD (i.e. ordination separation between sites) decreased through early seral ages then began to increase in later seral ages. Despite a species richness curve superficially consistent with competitive exclusion developing in later seral ages, the overall decline in all species abundances with advancing seral age, the low colony densities, and the persistence of only an ecologically subordinate species in the oldest seral age, argued against competitive exclusion and for a thermally based hypothesis of evolved species tolerance. Successional facilitation and examples of the role of individual life history characteristics were also noted with seral progression.