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Animals are integrated into the wider ecosystem via their foraging and behavior. The compensation hypothesis predicts that animals target their foraging efforts (i) toward nutrients that are scarce in the environment and (ii) toward nutrients that are not present in the usual diet of species, which varies across trophic levels. Understanding how foraging for resources varies locally, such as across habitat strata, and trophic levels will help to elucidate the links between the local environment and communities to the ecological functions that animals mediate. We examined whether the relative resource use of ants varies consistently along a habitat strata gradient and across trophic levels across Neotropical biomes. We placed 4500 baited tubes, each containing one of five liquid resources (sugar, amino acid, lipid, sodium, and distilled water) in one of three habitat strata (subterranean, epigaeic, and arboreal) across 60 transects in Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, Cerrado, Pampa, and Pantanal biomes. We assessed the relative resource use of all ants across the habitat strata and among two different trophic groups across biomes. The relative preference for sugar increased from subterranean to arboreal strata in all biomes, while the relative preference for lipids decreased at

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Information on the biology of the species in Myrmelachista remains notably scarce. The objective of this study was to report the occurrence, analyze the infl uence of canopy cover on the number of nests in twigs in the litter describe behavioral characteristics of this genus. Hand sampling was performed on trees and twigs deposited in the litter. A total of 84 nests and seven species were found. Myrmelachista ruszkii and M. catharinae were the most frequent and abundant species. In trees, most of the nests were located at the ti ps of dry twigs, and these nests were probably the source of the nests found in the litter of fragments of Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil. Canopy cover is associated with the number of nests that were in twigs.Key words: canopy, dense ombrophilous forest, polydomy, reproduction, tree species. RESUMENMyrmelachista es un género neotropical de hormigas arborícolas que nidifi can en cavidades de troncos y ramas. El conocimiento sobre la biología de sus especies es escaso. Este trabajo tuvo como objetivo registrar la ocurrencia, analizar la infl uencia del dosel sobre el número de nidos en ramas en la cama (mezcla de hojas, ramas y tierra) que cubre la selva, y describir las características de comportamiento de Myrmelachista. Se realizaron recolectas manuales de arbóreas y en ramas depositadas en la mezcla anterior. Se encontraron 84 nidos y siete especies Myrmelachista ruszkii y M. catharinae fueron las más frecuentes y abundantes. En las especies arbóreas la mayoría de los nidos se localizan en las extremidades secas de las ramas estos nidos fueron probablemente el origen de los nidos que se encuentran en las camas de los fragmentos de Floresta Atlántica de la región sureste brasileña. El número de nidos en ramas estaría asociado con la cobertura arbórea.Palabras clave: bosque ombrófi lo denso, dosel, especies arbóreas, polidomia, reproducción.