Current issues in the evolutionary ecology of ant-plant symbioses.
Ant-plant symbioses involve plants that provide hollow structures specialized for housing ants and often food to ants. In return, the inhabiting ants protect plants against herbivores and sometimes provide them with nutrients. Here, we review recent advances in ant-plant symbioses, focusing on three areas. First, the nutritional ecology of plant-ants, which is based not only on plant-derived food rewards, but also on inputs from other symbiotic partners, in particular fungi and possibly bacteria. Food and protection are the most important 'currencies' exchanged between partners and they drive the nature and evolution of the relationships. Secondly, studies of conflict and cooperation in ant-plant symbioses have contributed key insights into the evolution and maintenance of mutualism, particularly how partner-mediated feedbacks affect the specificity and stability of mutualisms. There is little evidence that mutualistic ants or plants are under selection to cheat, but the costs and benefits of ant-plant interactions do vary with environmental factors, making them vulnerable to natural or anthropogenic environmental change. Thus, thirdly, ant-plant symbioses should be considered good models for investigating the effects of global change on the outcome of mutualistic interactions.
Department of Structural and Functional Botany, Faculty Centre of Biodiversity, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, A-1030, Wien, Austria.
Veronika E
VE
Mayer
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord Street, Toronto, M5S 3G5, Canada.
Megan E
ME
Frederickson
Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175 CEFE, Université Montpellier 2, 1919 route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier Cedex 5, France.|Institut Universitaire de France, Université Montpellier 2, Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
Doyle
D
McKey
Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175 CEFE, CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
Rumsaïs
R
Blatrix
D000824:Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000502:physiology*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D017753:Ecosystem; D018521:Plant Physiological Phenomena; D013559:Symbiosis / Q000502:physiology*
ant-plant interactions; coevolution; domatia; global change; mutualism; myrmecophyte; nutritional ecology; symbiosis