Pitcher plants are several different carnivorous plants that have modified leaves known as pitfall traps—a prey-trapping mechanism featuring a deep cavity filled with digestive liquid. The traps of what are considered to be "true" pitcher plants are formed by specialized leaves. The plants attract and drown the prey with nectar.
Allomerus decemarticulatus is an Amazonian ant species found in the tropics of South America. This species is most notable for the workers’ complex and extreme predatory behavior, which involves a symbiosis with both a plant and fungal species. They live in leaf pockets of a host plant species, Hirtella physophora. These leaf pockets are areas inside of the plant between the leaves and the stem. Each colony, which consists of about 1,200 workers, inhabits a single tree; however, the ants are spread among the leaf pockets, with typically 40 workers per pocket. Their diet primarily consists of large insects that are captured on the plant, but they also eat some kinds of food bodies produced by the plant as well as its nectar. They are able to capture their prey, which is much larger than themselves, by constructing a platform that acts as a trap for the unsuspecting prey. The ants hide in the trap and attack when any insect lands on it. This technique is an example of ambush predation.
Brocchinia is a genus of the botanical family Bromeliaceae, and is the sole genus of the subfamily Brocchinioideae, containing 20 species. The genus is named for Giovanni Battista Brocchi, Italian naturalist (1772–1826). Brocchinia species are native primarily to the ancient Guayana Shield in southern Venezuela and Guyana, with some species extending into Colombia and northern Brazil. Its species are generally restricted to areas of sand and sandstone of the Roraima Formation; a few occur on granite.
Myrmecophytes are plants that live in a mutualistic association with a colony of ants. There are over 100 different genera of myrmecophytes. These plants possess structural adaptations that provide ants with food and/or shelter. These specialized structures include domatia, food bodies, and extrafloral nectaries. In exchange for food and shelter, ants aid the myrmecophyte in pollination, seed dispersal, gathering of essential nutrients, and/or defense. Specifically, domatia adapted to ants may be called myrmecodomatia.
Vachellia cornigera, commonly known as bullhorn acacia, is a swollen-thorn tree and Myrmecophyte native to Mexico and Central America. The common name of "bullhorn" refers to the enlarged, hollowed-out, swollen thorns that occur in pairs at the base of leaves, and resemble the horns of a steer. In Yucatán it is called "subín", in Panamá the locals call them "cachito". The trees are commonly found in wet lowlands
Nectar is a viscous, sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists, which in turn provide herbivore protection. Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, honeyeaters and bats. Nectar plays a crucial role in the foraging economics and evolution of nectar-eating species; for example, nectar foraging behavior is largely responsible for the divergent evolution of the African honey bee, A. m. scutellata and the western honey bee.
Ecological facilitation or probiosis describes species interactions that benefit at least one of the participants and cause harm to neither. Facilitations can be categorized as mutualisms, in which both species benefit, or commensalisms, in which one species benefits and the other is unaffected. This article addresses both the mechanisms of facilitation and the increasing information available concerning the impacts of facilitation on community ecology.
Vachellia collinsii, previously Acacia collinsii, is a species of flowering plant native to Central America and parts of Africa.
Myrmecodia is a genus of epiphytic myrmecophytes, native to Southeast Asia and present in Indochina, Malaysia, the Southwest Pacific, the Philippines, and extending south to Fiji and Cape York in Queensland, Australia. It is one of five ant-plant genera in the family Rubiaceae, the others being Anthorrhiza, Hydnophytum, Myrmephytum, and Squamellaria.
Myrmecophily is the term applied to positive interspecies associations between ants and a variety of other organisms, such as plants, other arthropods, and fungi. Myrmecophily refers to mutualistic associations with ants, though in its more general use, the term may also refer to commensal or even parasitic interactions.
Vachellia drepanolobium, more commonly known as Acacia drepanolobium or whistling thorn, is a swollen-thorn acacia native to East Africa. The whistling thorn grows up to 6 meters tall. It produces a pair of straight spines at each node, some of which have large bulbous bases. These swollen spines are naturally hollow and occupied by any one of several symbiotic ant species. The common name of the plant is derived from the observation that when wind blows over bulbous spines in which ants have made entry and exit holes, they produce a whistling noise.
A domatium is a tiny chamber that houses arthropods, produced by a plant.
Myrmecotrophy is the ability of plants to obtain nutrients from ants, a form of mutualism. Due to this behaviour the invasion of vegetation into harsh environments is promoted. The dead remains of insects thrown out by the ants are absorbed by the lenticular warts in myrmecophytes like Hydnophytum and Myrmecodia. Myrmecodia uses its lenticular warts to suck nutrients from the insects thrown out by the ants. The ants in turn benefit with a secure location to form their colony. The pitcher plant Nepenthes bicalcarata obtains an estimated 42% of its total foliar nitrogen from ant waste.
Duroia hirsuta is a myrmecophyte tree species from the Amazon Forest. It is one of some 37 species of Duroia, which are shrubs or canopy trees in the family Rubiaceae, favouring ants (myrmecophilous), and occurring in Central America as far north as Mexico, the Amazon Basin, the Guiana Shield, the Brazilian Atlantic coast and planalto.
Pearl bodies are small, lustrous, pearl-like food bodies produced from the epidermis of leaves, petioles and shoots of certain plants. They are rich in lipids, proteins and carbohydrates, and are sought after by various arthropods and ants, that carry out vigorous protection of the plant against herbivores, thus functioning as a biotic defence. They are globose or club-shaped on short peduncles, easily detached from the plant, and are food sources in the same sense as Beltian bodies, Müllerian bodies, Beccarian bodies, coccid secretions and nectaries. They occur in at least 19 plant families (1982) with tropical and subtropical distribution.
Tritrophic interactions in plant defense against herbivory describe the ecological impacts of three trophic levels on each other: the plant, the herbivore, and its natural enemies. They may also be called multitrophic interactions when further trophic levels, such as soil microbes, endophytes, or hyperparasitoids are considered. Tritrophic interactions join pollination and seed dispersal as vital biological functions which plants perform via cooperation with animals.
Eurybia elvina, commonly known as the blind eurybia, is a Neotropical metalmark butterfly. Like many other riodinids, the caterpillars are myrmecophilous and have tentacle nectary organs that exude a fluid similar to that produced by the host plant Calathea ovandensis. This mutualistic relationship allows ants to harvest the exudate, and in return provide protection in the form of soil shelters for larvae. The larvae communicate with the ants by vibrations produced by the movement of its head. The species was described and given its binomial name by the German lepidopterist Hans Stichel in 1910.
Tetraponera penzigi, is a species of ant of the subfamily Pseudomyrmecinae, which can be found in East Africa. It forms an obligate symbiosis with the whistling thorn acacia, a dominant tree in some upland areas of East Africa.
Tetraponera tessmanni is a species of ant in the subfamily Pseudomyrmecinae, which is native to tropical Central Africa, where it inhabits the hollow stems of the liana Vitex thyrsiflora.
Passiflora glandulosa, more commonly known as wild passion fruit, is a short deciduous climbing plant with stems that can grow up to 20 m (66 ft) long. The genus Passiflora is known for its colorful flowers, which is also prominent in the glandulosa species. Named by Antonio José Cavanilles in 1790, Passiflora glandulosa is native to many regions of the northeast coast of South America, having a neotropic distribution. In specific, Passiflora glandulosa is heavily populated in Guyana, Suriname, Brazil and French Guiana.
