Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Ant–plant interactions: the importance of extrafloral nectaries versus hemipteran honeydew on plant defense against herbivores

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Arthropod-Plant Interactions Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The two most important ant–plant attractions are extrafloral nectaries (EFNs) and hemipteran honeydew. In both cases, ants may offer an effective protection against natural enemies of plants, in exchange for its sugar-rich exudates. The aim of this paper was to compare the efficiency of ant protection between plants with EFNs and with hemipteran honeydew. The study was carried out in the Amazonian Rain Forest Reserve at km 41 (02º 24′S, 59º 44′W), located 80 km from Manaus. We recorded 24 ant species in 25 plants species in the forest understory along two line transects of 5 km. The efficiency of ants in protecting plants was measured by an experiment of prey removal using isopteran workers. It was found that ants are more effective and faster in attacking termites when using honeydew rather than EFNs, probably due to the larger resource monopolization. This study further underlines the importance of experimental studies to elucidate the ecological and evolutionary importance of EFNs and honeydew in ant–plant defense against herbivores.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Beattie AI (1985) Evolutionary ecology of ant-plant mutualisms. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Becerra JX, Venable DL (1989) Extrafloral nectaries: a defence against ant-homoptera mutualism? Oikos 55:276–280

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becerra JX, Venable DL (1991) The role of ant-homoptera mutualisms in the evolution of extrafloral nectaries. Oikos 60:105–106

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bentley BL (1977) The protective function of ants visiting extrafloral nectarines of Bixa orellanna L. (Bixacea). J Ecol 65:27–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blüthgen N, Verhaagh M, Goitia W, Jaffe K, Morawetz W, Barthlott W (2000) How plants shape the ant community in the Amazonian rainforest canopy: the key role of extrafloral nectaries and homopteran honeydew. Oecologia 125:229–240

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Blüthgen N, Stork NE, Fiedler K (2004) Bottom-up control and co-occurrence in complex communities: honeydew and nectar determine a rainforest ant mosaic. Oikos 106:344–358

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buckley RC (1987) Ant-plant-homopteran interactions. Adv Ecol Res 16:53–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carver M, Gross GF, Woodward TE (1991) The insects of Australia. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

    Google Scholar 

  • Crawley MJ (2013) The R book. Wiley, Hoboken

    Google Scholar 

  • Cushman JH, Beattie AI (1991) Mutualisms: assessing the benefits to hosts and visitors. Trends Ecol Evol 6:193–195

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cushman JH, Whitham TG (1991) Competition mediating the outcome of a mutualism—protective services of ants as a limiting resource for membracids. Am Nat 138:851–865

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dattilo W, Marquitti FMD, Guimarães PR Jr, Izzo TJ (2014) The structure of ant-plant ecological networks: is abundance enough? Ecology 95:475–485

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dáttilo W, Guimarães PR, Izzo TJ (2013) Spatial structure of ant-plant mutualistic networks. Oikos 122:1643–1648

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson DW, McKey D (1993) The evolutionary ecology of symbiotic ant-plant relationships. J Hym Res 2:13–83

    Google Scholar 

  • Delabie JHC (2001) Trophobiosis between Formicidae and Hemiptera (Sternorrhyncha and Auchenorrhyncha): an overview. Neotrop Entomol 30:501–516

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Del-Claro K, Santos JC (2000) A função de nectários extraflorais em plantas do cerrado. In: Cavalcanti TB (ed) Tópicos atuais em botânica. Embrapa, Brasília, pp 84–89

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisner T (1957) A comparative morphological study of the proventriculus of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Bull Mus Comp Zool 116:441–490

    Google Scholar 

  • Erwin TL (1983) Tropical forest canopies: the last biotic frontier. Bull Ent Soc Amer 29:14–19

    Google Scholar 

  • Fiala B (1990) Extrafloral nectaries vs ant-homoptera mutualisms: a comment on Becerra and Venable. Oikos 59:281–282

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Floren A, Linsenmair KL (2000) Do ant mosaics exist in pristini lowland rain forests? Oecologia 123:129–137

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaume L, Mckey D, Terrin S (1998) Ant-plant-homopteran mutualism: how the third partner affects the interaction between a plant-specialist ant and its myrmecophyte host. Proc R Soc Lond 265:567–575

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hölldobler B, Wilson EO (1990) The ants. The belknap press of harvard university press, Cambridge Massachusetts

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jeanne RL (1979) A latitudinal gradient in rates of ant predation. Ecology 60:1211–1224

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katayama N, Suzuky N (2003) Changes in the use of extrafloral nectaries of Vicia faba (Leguminosae) and honeydew of aphids by ants with increasing aphid density. Ann Entomol Soc Am 96:579–584

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Korndorfer AP, Del-Claro K (2006) Ant defense versus induced defense in Lafoensia pacari (Lythraceae), a myrmecophilous tree of the Brazilian Cerrado. Biotropica 38:786–788

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moya-Raygoza G, Larsen KJ (2001) Temporal resource switching by ants between honeydew produced by the fivespotted gama grass leafhopper (Dalbulus quinquenotatus) and nectar produced by plants with extrafloral nectaries. Am Midl Nat 146:311–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moya-Raygoza G, Nault LR (2000) Obligatory mutualism between Dalbulus quinquenotatus (Homoptera: Cicadellidae) and attendant ants. Ann Entomol Soc Am 93:929–940

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nascimento EA, Del-Claro K (2010) Ant visitation to extrafloral nectaries decreases herbivory and increases fruit set in Chamaecrista debilis (Fabaceae) in a Neotropical savanna. Flora 205:754–756

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nogueira A, Guimarães E, Machado SR, Lohmann LG (2012) Do extrafloral nectaries present a defensive role against herbivores in two species of the family Bignoniaceae in a Neotropical savannas? Plant Ecol 213:289–301

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Offenberg J (2000) Correlated evolution of the association between aphids and ants and the association between aphids and plants with extrafloral nectaries. Oikos 91:146–152

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliveira PS, Brandão CRF (1991) The ant community associated with extrafloral nectaries in the Brazilian cerrados. In: Cutler DF, Huxley CR (eds) Ant-plant interactions. Oxford University, England, pp 198–212

    Google Scholar 

  • Oliveira PS, Pie MR (1998) Interaction between ants and plants bearing extrafloral nectaries in cerrado vegetation. An Soc Entomol Bras 27:161–176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliveira OS, da Silva AF, Martins AB (1987a) Ant foraging on extrafloral nectaries of Qualea grandiflora (Vochysiaceae) in Cerrado vegetation: ants as potential anti-herbivore Agents. Oecologia 74:228–230

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliveira PS, Oliveira-Filho AR, Cintra R (1987b) Ant-foraging on ant-inhabited Triplaris (Polygonaceae) in western Brazil: a field experiment using live termite baits. J Trop Ecol 3:195–200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Development Core Team (2009) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna

    Google Scholar 

  • Rico-Gray V, Oliveira PS (2007) The Ecology and evolution of ant-plant interactions. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shenoy M, Radhika V, Satish S, Borges RM (2012) Composition of extrafloral nectar influences interactions between the myrmecophyte Humboldtia brunonis and its ant associates. J Chem Ecol 38:88–99

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Weibull WA (1951) A statistical distribution of wide applicability. J Appl Mech 18:293–297

    Google Scholar 

  • Zar JH (1999) Biostatistical analysis. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the coordinators of the Amazonian Forest Ecology field course Prof. Dr. Jansen Zuanon, Prof. Dr. Eduardo Venticinque and Prof. Dr. Glauco Machado. We are grateful to Prof. Marcelo Moreira for the plant identification, to Flávio Quental for help in the field and to Angela Pacheco for help in data analyses. We are also grateful to Prof. Dr. Heraldo Luís de Vasconcelos, Andrew White and two anonymous referees for manuscript revision.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biologia Geral, Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV), Viçosa, MG, 36570-000, Brazil

    Ricardo I. Campos

  2. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Entomologia, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), Curitiba, PR, 81531-980, Brazil

    Gabriela P. Camacho

Authors
  1. Ricardo I. Campos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gabriela P. Camacho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ricardo I. Campos.

Additional information

Handling Editors: Stanislav Gorb and Heikki Hokkanen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Campos, R.I., Camacho, G.P. Ant–plant interactions: the importance of extrafloral nectaries versus hemipteran honeydew on plant defense against herbivores. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 8, 507–512 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-014-9338-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-014-9338-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation