The Contribution of Ant-Plant Protection Studies to Our Understanding of Mutualism
نویسنده
چکیده
One common class of ant-plant mutualism involves ants that defend from natural enemies in return for food and sometimes shelter. Studies of these interactions have played a major role in shaping our broad understanding of murualism. Their central contribution has come via their development of approaches to measuring the benefits, costs, and net outcomes of murualism, and their explicit consideration of variability in all of these phenomena. Current research on these interactions is suggesting ecological and evolutionary hypotheses that may be applicable to many other forms of mutualism. It is also generating comparative data for testing the feu, general theories about mutualism that currently exist.
منابع مشابه
The Curious Case of the Camelthorn: Competition, Coexistence, and Nest-Site Limitation in a Multispecies Mutualism.
Myrmecophyte plants house ants within domatia in exchange for protection against herbivores. Ant-myrmecophyte mutualisms exhibit two general patterns due to competition between ants for plant occupancy: (i) domatia nest sites are a limiting resource and (ii) each individual plant hosts one ant species at a time. However, individual camelthorn trees (Vachellia erioloba) typically host two to fou...
متن کاملMutualism exploitation: predatory drosophilid larvae sugar-trap ants and jeopardize facultative ant-plant mutualism.
An open question in the evolutionary ecology of ant-plant facultative mutualism is how other members of the associated community can affect the interaction to a point where reciprocal benefits are disrupted. While visiting Qualea grandiflora shrubs to collect sugary rewards at extrafloral nectaries, tropical savanna ants deter herbivores and reduce leaf damage. Here we show that larvae of the f...
متن کاملProtection Mutualisms and the Community: Geographic Variation in an Ant-Plant Symbiosis and the Consequences for Herbivores
Mutualistic interactions between species can strongly affect the structure of ecological communities (Stachowicz, 2001; Bruno et al. 2003; Hay et al., 2004). For example, animal seed dispersal can determine the composition of tropical-tree communities (Terborgh et al., 2008), and pollinator preferences can favor the spread of certain plant species (Chittka and Schürkens, 2001). Protection mutua...
متن کاملECOLOGY AND POPULATION BIOLOGY Effects of Host Plant Quality and Ant Tending for Treehopper Publilia concava
Few studies have evaluated the relative importance of bottom-up regulation for the population dynamics of mutualism. To address this, we tested the hypothesis that host plant quality affects the strength of the mutualism between Publilia concava (Say) (Hemiptera: Membracidae) treehoppers feeding on Solidago altissima L. and ants. P. concava is a phloem-feeding treehopper that excretes a sugary ...
متن کاملHerbivory in a spider through exploitation of an ant–plant mutualism
Spiders are thought to be strict predators. We describe a novel exception: Bagheera kiplingi, a Neotropical jumping spider (Salticidae) that exploits a well-studied ant-plant mutualism, is predominantly herbivorous. From behavioral field observations and stable-isotope analyses, we show that the main diet of this host-specific spider comprises specialized leaf tips (Beltian food bodies; Figure ...
متن کامل