Question: Ant-Acacia Mutualisms
Judi writes:
I'd like to know more about Ant-Acacia Mutualisms. What are they?
First, they're really, really cool.
The acacia trees here have hollow thorns, and the ants live in the thorns. The trees provide nectaries on the petioles of leaves and sometimes Beltian bodies, which contain oils and proteins for the ants to eat. In return, the ants theoretically defend the tree from herbivores, and some species clear away competing vegetation. I say "theoretically" because apparently some ant species are more selfish than others, and ants may take from the plant without giving back. Thus, some species are poor mutualists.
We've seen three ant species so far, Pseudomyrmex spinicola, which is red and the most aggressive, Pseudomyrmex flavicornis, which is black and less aggressive, and a Crematogaster spp. They were little black guys who hold their abdomens high in the air and look pretty silly.
It's sort of fun to tap on a tree branch or trunk and watch the ants come pouring out of their thorns to investigate the disturbance. That's basically what our project was, except we were tapping on leaves, flowers, and fruits to see if the ants differentially protected different structures. We found that they didn't really protect anything at all, which could be for a lot of different reasons.
I'd like to know more about Ant-Acacia Mutualisms. What are they?
First, they're really, really cool.
The acacia trees here have hollow thorns, and the ants live in the thorns. The trees provide nectaries on the petioles of leaves and sometimes Beltian bodies, which contain oils and proteins for the ants to eat. In return, the ants theoretically defend the tree from herbivores, and some species clear away competing vegetation. I say "theoretically" because apparently some ant species are more selfish than others, and ants may take from the plant without giving back. Thus, some species are poor mutualists.
We've seen three ant species so far, Pseudomyrmex spinicola, which is red and the most aggressive, Pseudomyrmex flavicornis, which is black and less aggressive, and a Crematogaster spp. They were little black guys who hold their abdomens high in the air and look pretty silly.
It's sort of fun to tap on a tree branch or trunk and watch the ants come pouring out of their thorns to investigate the disturbance. That's basically what our project was, except we were tapping on leaves, flowers, and fruits to see if the ants differentially protected different structures. We found that they didn't really protect anything at all, which could be for a lot of different reasons.
posted by Allison at 12:43 PM
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