Disassembly or assembly of an ant community in a temperate forest

Because the occurrence of living organisms is limited by competition, it is normal for organisms to follow the assembly rule in which similar species do not co-occur. In order to test whether ants within a forest follow the assembly rule, ant data surveyed for 10 years in an old temperate forest were analyzed. In most cases, co-occurrence among ant species was not different to random co-occurrence, and less co-occurrence was found only in some years, indicating ephemeral influence of competition. This finding was confirmed in the correlation analysis using data of abundance. Therefore, ants living together in a small area within a forest did not follow the assembly rule.