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

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.