Obligate plant farming by a specialized ant
@article{Chomicki2016ObligatePF, title={Obligate plant farming by a specialized ant}, author={Guillaume Chomicki and Susanne S. Renner}, journal={Nature Plants}, year={2016}, volume={2} }
Many epiphytic plants have associated with ants to gain nutrients. Here, we report a novel type of ant–plant symbiosis in Fiji where one ant species actively and exclusively plants the seeds and fertilizes the seedlings of six species of Squamellaria (Rubiaceae). Comparison with related facultative ant plants suggests that such farming plays a key role in mutualism stability by mitigating the critical re-establishment step.
27 Citations
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Plants across 50 families have evolved modified structures to host ants in return for defense or nutrients—sometimes both (Chomicki & Renner, 2015). Recently some astounding discoveries have been…
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