Our aim was to find 30 ant nests within each
patch. To determine the cumulative number of
ant species as a function of nests, we attached
a serial number to each sample, to be identified
to species. We used the function to evaluate
whether the accumulation of species seemed to
saturate satisfyingly before the aim of 30 nests
was reached. To keep track of sampling effort,
we kept time with a stopwatch while collecting,
and stopped it for sampling.