Ants often act as ecosystem engineers in mediating the soil microbial and physicochemical properties. This thus can exert a crucial effect on soil organic nitrogen mineralization and its temporal dynamics in tropical forest. The indoor-aerobic incubation method was used to determine soil organic nitrogen mineralization rates in Mallotus paniculatus community of Xishuangbanna tropical forest. This study aimed to compare temporal dynamics of soil organic nitrogen mineralization rates in ant nests and the reference soils. We also revealed the effects of the changes of soil inorganic nitrogen pool (i.e., NH₄-N and NO₃-N), microbial biomass carbon, and chemical properties on the temporal dynamics of organic nitrogen mineralization rates driven by the ant nesting activities. The results were as follows:(1) Ant colonization had a significant effect on soil nitrogen mineralization rates (P<0.01). The mean organic nitrogen mineralization rates were 261% higher in ant nests than in reference soils. (2) The monthly dynamics in soil organic nitrogen mineralization rates showed an obvious trend of single peak, which was the largest in June (ant nests:1.22 mg kg^-1 d^-1, reference soils:0.41 mg kg^-1 d^-1) and the smallest in December (ant nests:0.82 mg kg^-1 d^-1, reference soils:0.18 mg kg^-1 d^-1). (3) Two-way ANOVAs showed that the factors of month and treatment had significant effects on the concentrations of soil organic nitrogen mineralization rates, NH₄-N, and NO₃-N (P<0.05), but no significant interaction of them was observed on NO₃-N. (4) Ant colonization significantly increased the concentrations of soil inorganic nitrogen pool (NH₄-N and NO₃-N), microbial biomass carbon, organic matter, hydrolyzable nitrogen, total nitrogen, readily oxidizable organic carbon, but reduced the value of soil pH. (5) The regression analysis showed that ammonium and nitrate nitrogen had significant effects on soil organic nitrogen mineralization rates, accounting for 87.89% and 61.84% of the changes in soil organic nitrogen mineralization rates, respectively. 6) Principal component analysis indicated that ammonium nitrogen, microbial biomass carbon, and organic matter were the main factors affecting the temporal dynamics of soil nitrogen mineralization rates, followed by total and nitrate nitrogen, readily oxidizable organic carbon, hydrolyzable nitrogen, and pH. Soil pH was negatively correlated with soil nitrogen mineralization rates. In short, the ant colonization had a crucial role in regulating the temporal dynamics in soil organic nitrogen mineralization rates, through affecting ammonium nitrogen, microbial biomass carbon, and soil organic matter in the Xishuangbanna tropical forest. The results would be helpful to further improve our understanding of the biological regulation mechanism of soil nitrogen mineralization.