Ant distribution patterns in a cameroonian cocoa plantation: investigation of the ant mosaic hypothesis

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Abstract
Investigation of the spatial distribution of tropical ant species has shown that in tree crop plantations, abundant species have mutually exclusive distributions generated by competition thus forming a ‘mosaic’ of territories in the tree canopies. This study compares the spatial distribution of ants which live in the trees with that of ants which live on the ground in a cocoa plantation in Southern Cameroon. It shows that while tree-dwelling ants maintain mutually exclusive distributions, the distributions of ground-dwelling ants overlap in the majority of cases, even though competition occurs. Associations with different habitat types could explain the few cases in which ground-dwelling ants did not overlap. Possible reasons for the differences between the organisation of the tree-dwelling and ground-dwelling faunas are suggested.