2.3.1 Assessing patterns in microclimate and microhabitat structure
We quantified microclimate (air temperature, relative humidity and PPFD) as well as changes in microhabitat structure (total leaf area) along both vertical and horizontal gradients. To be consistent with the assemblage data, we calculated the mean air temperature and relative humidity at the same scale (5 m vertical intervals) at which the ants were sampled by either using the data close to the 5 m interval point or using the average between sampling points. We expect microclimate and microhabitat structure to change directionally along vertical gradients due to canopy buffering effects, but to vary in a non-directional manner horizontally. As such, we ran separately four linear regression models for air temperature, relative humidity, PPFD and leaf area, with vertical height above ground as a continuous explanatory variable and horizontal position of vertical transects as a categorical explanatory variable.