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Mutualism Between Ants and Acacia Trees

Sources

http://w3.marietta.edu/~biol/costa_rica/animals/acacia_ants.htm

Janzen, Daniel H. "Coevolution of Mutualism Between Ants and Acacias in Central America." Evolution 20.3 (1966): 249-75. Web.

http://florawww.eeb.uconn.edu/200300277.html

Heil, Martin, and McKey Doyle. "Protective Ant-Plant Interactions as Model Systems in Ecological and Evolutionary Research." Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 34 (2003): 425-53. Web.

Benefits To The Trees

Benefits To The Ants

  • The trees are provided protection
  • The trees are defended from herbivores
  • The trees are defended from competing vegetation on the forest floor
  • The trees are defended from epihytic plants
  • The trees are defended from other dangerous insects and small animals

Ant and Tree Interaction

  • Obligate Mutualism
  • Coevolution
  • The ants are provided food, protein, sugar, and water in the form of nectaries
  • The ants, in most cases, are provided nesting sites to raise the young. (Usually in the thorns)
  • The plants also provide the ants with protein rich beltian Bodies. (Sometimes the trees provide less when there is less of a threat)
  • Only "obligatory" ant-acacia mutualism is when the colony is solely in the acacia thorns.

Janzen, Daniel H. "Coevolution of Mutualism Between Ants and Acacias in Central America." Evolution 20.3 (1966): 249-75. Web.

Heil, Martin, and McKey Doyle. "Protective Ant-Plant Interactions as Model Systems in Ecological and Evolutionary Research." Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 34 (2003): 425-53. Web.

Ant Background

  • Acacia ants (Pseudomyrmex ferruginea)
  • Brown, wasp like body
  • Lives in trees

Acacia Background

  • Bull-thorn Acacia (Vachellia Cornigera)
  • Located from Mexico to Costa Rica
  • Wet sites in lowlands
  • Shrub to small tree
  • Large semi hollow spines
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