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Temporal and dietary niche is context‐dependent in tropical ants
Author(s) -
Houadria Mickal,
Menzel Florian
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ecological entomology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.865
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1365-2311
pISSN - 0307-6946
DOI - 10.1111/een.12857
Subject(s) - niche , intraspecific competition , biology , ecological niche , ecology , interspecific competition , niche segregation , context (archaeology) , niche differentiation , habitat , paleontology
1. Niche traits (those that describe a species' niche) are not constant within a species, and the importance of intraspecific variation is increasingly appreciated. However, little is known about the extent of niche variability across species. This study investigated variation in dietary and temporal niches of ant species in two tropical rainforests. 2. Ants were collected from baits reflecting seven different natural resources and from pitfalls at 128 grid points. Sampling was done separately for day and night. Co‐occurrence analyses were used to estimate the monopolisation capacity of each species. 3. It was expected that species would show similar dietary and temporal preferences across sites. Therefore, species with high or low niche variability between grid points (within a site) should show similar tendencies when comparing sites. It was predicted that between sites, intraspecific variability should be lower than interspecific variability, and that numerically dominant species should have higher monopolisation rates and lower intraspecific niche variability than less common ones. 4. These results showed that niche traits such as temporal activity and realised food niche shifted drastically between conspecifics of different sites. Even the most common species showed different food or temporal preferences between sites. In general, species with the highest monopolisation rates displayed lower niche variability. 5. This study also demonstrates that niche characterisation via combined continuous rather than categorical values permits a quantification of a species' niche variability. Categorising niche traits without considering context dependency may be misleading if one tries to assess niche width and a species' ability to cope with environmental change.