<p>Multivariate assessment of mound architecture, edaphic properties, and thermal regulation across sampling locations.</p>

<p>Box-and-whisker plots <b>(A–E)</b> illustrate the intraspecific and interspecific variation for A. <i>cephalotes</i> (green) and <i>A. laevigata</i> (orange) across twelve distinct geographic sites. <b>(A)</b> <i>Mound Area</i>, presented as Log₁₀-transformed values (cm²) to normalize the highly skewed distribution of colony sizes. <b>(B)</b> <i>Shape Ratio</i>, defined as the degree of surface symmetry. <b>(C) Soil pH</b>, representing the chemical conditions of the mound substrate. <b>(D)</b> <i>Light Percentage</i>, indicating the level of canopy openness at the nest site. <b>(E)</b> <i>Temperature Difference</i>, representing the thermal gradient between the internal colony core at ~10 cm and the external environment (°C).

Shaded boxes denote the interquartile range (IQR), horizontal lines represent the median, and whiskers extend to 1.5 times the IQR. Two-letter codes at the base of each distribution correspond to specific sampling locations (e.g., MF: Montefrio, NZ: Nemizaque, etc.; see <a href="plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0351518#pone.0351518.s015" target="_blank">S1 Table</a> for full location metadata).</p> <p>(DOCX)</p>