Sugared-up Ants Make Better Guardians
As ants roam around on a plant, they can help their leafy companion by killing any herbivores they find. Ants often
do just that, because many ants need meat in their diets. Some species of ants are more aggressive than others, and many plants don't have any choice about which species visit. Researchers report for the first time that when plants supply ants with nectar, it boosts the ants' desire for meat, potentially making them better bodyguards for the plant.
Nectar isn't just found in flowers. Many plants exude nectar from little pores on the plant, called extrafloral nectaries, that attract ants. In this case, the team studied the behavior of four species of ants that visit extrafloral nectaries on a common Sonoran desert plant known as barrel cactus, or Ferocactus wislizeni. In one experiment, the researchers sealed up the nectaries with rubber cement to see if the ants would abandon a nectary-free cactus. The ants became very agitated and eventually pulled off the rubber cement to get at the nectar. The ants clearly treasure the nectar available from the cacti. The researchers wanted to know what kind of value the ants gave the plant in return.
Researchers put baits of sugar and of meat at the base of barrel cactus plants and at the base of plants without extrafloral nectaries. For all four species, ants foraging by the cacti had a stronger preference for meat than did the same species of ants when foraging near other plants. However, the ant species differed in the strength of their preference for meat. To see how that might translate into plant protection, the researchers put caterpillars on cactus plants and measured how quickly each ant species recruited its fellows to the fresh meat and how many ants it took to vanquish five caterpillars in 30 minutes. Within five to 15 minutes, ant numbers rapidly increased, and ants were dismembering caterpillars. But although all four ant species were equally good at recruiting their kindred to attack caterpillars, the species differed in their effectiveness at killing. Ant species that had shown greater preferences for meat in the previous experiment were also better protectors. Even so, all four species did kill some caterpillars, so hosting even the wimpiest ant species was better for the plant than having no ants at all. The researchers also found that numbers matter: a lot of the wimpy ants could eventually do as good a job of protection as a few of the more aggressive ants. (Univ.of AZ, 8/1/04).
