TY - JOUR

T1 - Ants at plant wounds

T2 - A little-known trophic interaction with evolutionary implications for ant-plant interactions

AU - Staab, Michael

AU - Fornoff, Felix

AU - Klein, Alexandra Maria

AU - Blüthgen, Nico

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2017 by The University of Chicago.

PY - 2017/9/1

Y1 - 2017/9/1

N2 - Extrafloral nectaries (EFNs) allow plants to engage in mutualisms with ants, preventing herbivory in exchange for food. EFNs occur scattered throughout the plant phylogeny and likely evolved independent from herbivore-created wounds subsequently visited by ants collecting leaked sap. Records of wound-feeding ants are, however, anecdotal. By surveying 38,000 trees from 40 species, we conducted the first quantitative ecological study of this overlooked behavior. Antwound interactions were widespread (0.5% of tree individuals) and occurred on 23 tree species. Interaction networks were opportunistic, closely resembling ant-EFN networks. Fagaceae, a family lacking EFNs, was strongly overrepresented. For Fagaceae, ant occurrence at wounds correlated with species-level leaf damage, potentially indicating that wounds may attract mutualistic ants, which supports the hypothesis of ant-tended wounds as precursors of ant-EFN mutualisms. Given that herbivore wounds are common, wound sap as a steadily available food source might further help to explain the overwhelming abundance of ants in (sub)tropical forest canopies.

AB - Extrafloral nectaries (EFNs) allow plants to engage in mutualisms with ants, preventing herbivory in exchange for food. EFNs occur scattered throughout the plant phylogeny and likely evolved independent from herbivore-created wounds subsequently visited by ants collecting leaked sap. Records of wound-feeding ants are, however, anecdotal. By surveying 38,000 trees from 40 species, we conducted the first quantitative ecological study of this overlooked behavior. Antwound interactions were widespread (0.5% of tree individuals) and occurred on 23 tree species. Interaction networks were opportunistic, closely resembling ant-EFN networks. Fagaceae, a family lacking EFNs, was strongly overrepresented. For Fagaceae, ant occurrence at wounds correlated with species-level leaf damage, potentially indicating that wounds may attract mutualistic ants, which supports the hypothesis of ant-tended wounds as precursors of ant-EFN mutualisms. Given that herbivore wounds are common, wound sap as a steadily available food source might further help to explain the overwhelming abundance of ants in (sub)tropical forest canopies.

KW - BEF-China

KW - Ecological networks

KW - Fagaceae

KW - Plant sap

KW - Trophic interactions

KW - Trophobioses

KW - Biology

KW - Energy research

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85039043807&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1086/692735

DO - 10.1086/692735

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 28829637

AN - SCOPUS:85039043807

VL - 190

SP - 442

EP - 450

JO - American Naturalist

JF - American Naturalist

SN - 0003-0147

IS - 3

ER -