The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions (Interspecific Interactions)
Contents:
Over evolutionary time, certain antagonistic interactions can exhibit a shift in outcome so that the interacting species benefit from the interaction. A change in outcome from antagonism to mutualism is most likely in interactions that are inevitable within the lifetimes of individuals and may have their evolutionary origin in the defense reactions of species. Ants and plants are involved in seed and fruit dispersal as well as pollination. This chapter describes the general characteristics of the reward offered by the plants to the ants elaiosomes.
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It offers some general concepts on the selective advantage to plants of seed dispersal by ants that have been associated with a variety of major benefits or hypotheses, followed by examples provided by research done in different regions of the world. The chapter also examines the distribution and significance of myrmecochory worldwide.
Ant-Plant Interactions
More recently, however, the relevance of postdispersal events for seed fate and demography of plant species has been repeatedly emphasized for a number of dispersal systems. Indeed, recent studies have demonstrated that postdispersal events, some of them involving ants as seed vectors, can markedly affect seed fate in numerous plant species from different regions. Although myrmecochory can be an important dispersal strategy for some plant taxa in neotropical forests, typical myrmecochores are especially common in arid Australia and South Africa, and in Mediterranean and temperate areas.
This chapter summarizes recent findings showing that the use of fallen fleshy diaspores by opportunistic ground-dwelling ants can have relevant effects on seed and seedling biology of primarily vertebrate-dispersed plant species. It characterizes the plant and ant species involved in these interactions, addresses the particular attributes of ants and diaspores that mediate the interaction, and discusses the possible consequences of the interaction for the plants.
Early insect pollinators of angiosperms fed on pollen, ovules, seeds, and flower parts. The vast majority of these interactions were detrimental to the plants, and the closed carpels of angiosperms were probably a defense against these flower visitors.
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- The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions, Rico-Gray, Oliveira.
However, these antagonistic interactions provided a basis on which selection could act, because some flower visitors were less detrimental to flower parts than others, while some plants possessed floral traits that caused the interaction to be less detrimental to the plant and, at some point in time, beneficial. This chapter explores antagonism and mutualism between ants and flowers, focusing on pollination by ants and how ants discourage floral visits.
Most studies, however, consider directly the interaction between two species, even though the evolutionary unit of many mutualisms involves at least three species in a way that emphasizes the evolutionary relationships between antagonism and mutualism. This chapter first describes the classic case of the association between Pseudomyrmex and Acacia, in which plants offer inquiline ants a whole array of resources food bodies, extrafloral nectar, and domatia in exchange for defense against herbivores and competitors.
It then reviews and discusses other cases of ant—plant interactions in which plants offer both food bodies and domatia, or only domatia, and also looks at interactions in which plants offer mainly extrafloral nectar a few also provide domatia. Finally, the chapter focuses on plant defensive strategies, induced responses, and the nature of conditionality. Ant-tended Hemiptera aphids, scales, coccids, whiteflies, leafhoppers, and treehoppers are sap-sucking herbivores that excrete the excess liquid and sugars as energy-rich honeydew.
The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions
Most Hemiptera are herbivores and their deleterious effect on plants is not only due to sap-sucking, which decreases plant fitness; they are also important vectors of plant pathogens. The presence of Hemiptera in low-diversity systems, including greenhouses, crop fields, and orchards, has been associated with high plant damage.
However, it has been suggested that, under natural conditions, hemipterans do not reach high densities, and that their presence can therefore even be beneficial to some plants rather than harmful. This chapter examines the general characteristics of ant—hemipteran—plant interactions, including their conditional nature and possible outcomes, and their effects on the fitness of the various participants.
Using fossil and current evidence, it also analyzes the ant—hemipteran interactions as they relate to the evolution of extrafloral nectaries. Nutrition of Plants by Ant Mutualists: Light gaps in forests induce a high richness of biotic interactions through intense competition among plants and through animal—plant interactions. Mutualism can be favored when organisms with a high probability of encounter and very low pre-mutualism growth rates live in environments that impose a high level of physical stress for example, nutrient-poor habitats but lack the richness of antagonistic interactions that is the basis for selection in many other mutualisms.
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The book The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions, Victor Rico-Gray and Paulo S. Oliveira is published by University of Chicago Press. The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions (Interspecific Interactions) eBook: Victor Rico-Gray, Paulo S. Oliveira: bahana-line.com: Kindle Store.
Unless you want very techy info and sentences with long lines of author names in parenthesis in between words in sentences, I wouldn't advise you buy this. I'm slogging through it a few pages at a time but I'm starting to feel like I'm in quick sand! This is all about the ecology of ants. Plants with Extrafloral Nectaries Appendix Overview and Perspectives Literature Cited Index. Anurag Agrawal, Cornell University.
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Bert Hoelldobler, Arizona State University. It will also serve as required reading for graduate students who are beginning work on topics in this field. More generally, it should appeal to anyone with an interest in the ecology and evolution of mutualism. Suvak Thaiszia Journal of Botany. It is the most current and thorough treatment of ant-plant interactions to come along in over a decade.
Abbott Integrative and Comparative Biology. Moreover, it places ant-plant interactions in the larger context of the geographic mosaic of coevolution, and broader ecological theory, and will be a useful text for ecologists generally.
Rico-Gray and Oliveira have produced a thorough and well-timed synthesis of an incredibly diverse field. It ranges widely over the subject and has a nice historical view, as well as being up-to-date, so that everyone can learn from it.
This edited volume offers a timely, comprehensive treatment of ways in which ecologically diverse ant-plant interactions are affected by, and are responding to, human-induced changes to the landscape. Ants and plants are associated basically in two categories of antagonistic interaction: Save Search You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches". Bert Hoelldobler, Arizona State University. It is the most current and thorough treatment of ant-plant interactions to come along in over a decade. Citing articles via Google Scholar. Oliveira capture both the emerging appreciation of the importance of these interactions within ecosystems and the developing approaches that place studies of these interactions into a broader ecological and evolutionary context.