ABSTRACT
Most ants are omnivorous; and as a consequence, competitive displacement is a common occurrence. In most biotic communities, ants are conspicuous by their large numbers, but ant population diversity may be limited by resource availability. The niche breadth of any one population should increase if a resource is in short supply; however, interspecific competition between predominant ant species will act to oppose niche broadening. A temporo-spatial separation of activity may be a means of partitioning resources among different ant species. The scarcity of native ants may have contributed to a lack of significance at the second site. An indication of niches decrease in competitiveness by S. invicta in central Texas may be the diel foraging fluctuations that result in resource partitioning. Three colonies of S. invicta and three colonies each of P. dentata, F. foetidus, and M. minimum were collected from W. E. Kerr and Lubbock Counties, Texas, respectively.
