Abstract
Ficus is one of many plant genera involved in interactions with ants. The interaction is however little documented. We show here that ants, belonging mainly to the genus Crematogaster, nest in hollow internodes of young branches of Ficus subpisocarpa, a monoecious fig species studied in Taiwan. The ants feed on the mutualistic fig-pollinating wasps as well as on parasitic non-pollinating fig wasps. Nevertheless fig-wasps may not constitute a sufficient food source to ensure permanent presence of ants on the tree as the ants were observed to be frequently associated with hemipterans such as coccids and aphids. Fig wasps seem to constitute a reliable and sufficient food source on some dioecious Ficus species. On the contrary, in monoecious Ficus species, resident ants have always been observed to tend homopteran in addition to feeding on fig wasps. Frequent fruiting, prolonged fruit ripening period, ramiflory and rapid growth could constitute traits facilitating strong association based on fig-wasps' consumption of the monoecious F. subpisocarpa with ants. Despite these traits, ants were observed to tend hemipterans, and F. subpisocarpa does not seem to have evolved specialized morphological traits to facilitate the association.
Highlights
A major challenge of ecology is the assessment of species' communities and the understanding of the determinants of their structure and organization (Fortuna & Bascompte 2006; Bascompte & Jordano 2007; Proffit et al 2007; Bascompte 2009; Cavender-Bares et al 2009; Ings et al 2009; Vázquez et al 2009)
While the presence of a central cavity within the branches of fig trees is quite common, we demonstrated here that cavity traits in F. subpisocarpa allow a series of ant species to inhabit these cavities
After an analysis of occurrence of branch cavities in dioecious and monoecious fig species, we will examine how this trait may favor myrmecophytism, in conjunction with the different food sources exploited by ants on different Ficus species
Summary
A major challenge of ecology is the assessment of species' communities and the understanding of the determinants of their structure and organization (Fortuna & Bascompte 2006; Bascompte & Jordano 2007; Proffit et al 2007; Bascompte 2009; Cavender-Bares et al 2009; Ings et al 2009; Vázquez et al 2009). Specialized ant-plant interactions have been used as ecological and evolutionary models to understand selective factors affecting plants (Heil & McKey 2003). Some of these specialized interactions have been shown to be structured by chemical mediation (Ranganathan & Borges 2009; Schatz et al 2010) and support complex networks of plurispecific interactions involving herbivores, parasites, predators and secondary mutualists (Palmer et al 2008; Schatz et al, 2008, 2010; Blatrix et al 2009; Goheen & Palmer 2010)
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