Red wood ants support a diverse community of myrmecophiles in their nest mounds. Given that nest mounds provide fairly constant and distinct habitat patches for myrmecophiles, metapopulation and metacommunity dynamics can be expected to play an important role in structuring myrmecophile communities. Here, we investigate how site, site size (i.e. number of mounds per site), mound isolation, mound size, moisture, pH and red wood ant host (Formica rufa and Formica polyctena) affect the (meta)community composition and species richness. We demonstrate that community composition is structured by site and within-site isolation. In addition, species richness per unit volume is negatively correlated with increasing nest mound isolation. Mound size and site size at a higher spatial scale had no effect on community composition or diversity. The latter suggests that few mounds are required to support the minimum viable metapopulation size. We did not find support that the environmental variables mound moisture and pH affect the myrmecophile community or its species richness. Finally, the communities of the two closely related wood ant species F. rufa and F. polyctena were very similar. Overall, our results demonstrate, in accordance with metapopulation theory, that isolated mounds support fewer myrmecophile species. Diverse myrmecophile metacommunities also occur in small red wood ant sites, with well connected nest mounds. We discuss the powerful potential of ant nests, and particularly red wood ant mounds, for metapopulation and metacommunity research.