1.  The return of invertebrate animals to rehabilitated mine pits is desirable for the re‐establishment of ecosystem functioning. A long‐term ant monitoring programme is reported over 14 years in a jarrah Eucalyptus marginata forest control plot and in three bauxite mine pits, one of which had been left unvegetated, one planted with marri trees E. calophylla and the other seeded with mixed native plant species. 2.  The results confirm published findings for the first 2 years of the succession that seeding with mixed species results in a more rapid attainment of a forest‐like ant fauna, although in the last 6 years of the study the ant fauna of the planted plot had become more similar to that of the seeded plot. 3.  Changes in the nature of the ant fauna are described and it is concluded that although composition has substantially converged on that of the forest by the end of the study, differences still persist. 4.  Research on vegetation, spiders and ants in bauxite mined areas which have been rehabilitated using more recent technology suggest that these differences will lessen with time and with the introduction of improved rehabilitation prescriptions. 5.  An additional aim of the study was to validate the chronosequence approach to studying ecosystem recovery following disturbances such as mining. It is concluded that long‐term studies provide important information that is missed by the chronosequence approach. Ideally, rapid‐feedback chronosequence approaches should be augmented by long‐term case studies.

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A study of spider (Araneae) communities was conducted in rehabilitated bauxite mines at the Jarrahdale mine site of Alcoa of Australia Ltd. and in the nearby native jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forest in southwest Western Australia. The study was conducted from March to August 1993 in five rehabilitated sites of different age and method of rehabilitation and in two forest sites. A variety of collection methods was used, including pitfall trapping, litter sampling, sweep netting, tree beating, and visual searching. These methods were the same as those carried out in a previous study of some of these areas in 1983. We collected 151 spider species belonging to 102 genera and 34 families. We examined the relationship between various habitat features, including the age and method of rehabilitation, of the spider communities present. It was found that leaf litter depth and cover and vegetation density had a significant positive influence on recolonization by the various spider guilds. The age and method of rehabilitation were found to influence different vegetational and habitat features; these, in turn, influenced the spider communities. Thus, the older a rehabilitated site the greater the species richness of both plants and spiders. We compared these results with those of the 1983 study to determine the spider succession of the aging rehabilitation. The spider communities and guild composition were found to change as the vegetation matured, from a dominance of pioneer species to a community of species requiring less harsh conditions. By comparison with the pre‐1983 rehabilitation, the latest method of rehabilitation increased the rate of recolonization by both plants and spiders.

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