AbstractSpecies association is one of the basic concepts in community succession. There are different viewpoints on how species interaction changes with progression of succession. In order to assess these relationships, we examined species association in the tropical montane rain forest at early and late successional stages in Diaoluo Mountain of Hainan Island. Based on 2×2 contingency tables of species presence or absence data, statistical methods including analysis of species association and ² test were applied. The results showed that: (1) the positive associations were present among overall woody species of the communities during the two successional stages, and were significant at the late stage. The number of species-pairs with positive and negative association all decreased through the process of succession, while the number with null associations increased drastically. The same trend existed among the dominant species and companion species. The results indicated that the communities were developing towards a stabilized stage in which the woody species coexisted in harmony. (2) As to the early-established species and later invading species, all positive associations among them were not significant. Compared with the positive and null associations, fewer negative associations were found. This implied that these species were inclined to coexist independently through resource partitioning. (3) Among the later invading species, positive associations were significant, and no negative associations were found, which suggested that these species had similar adaptative ability in the habitat and occupied overlapping niches in the community.