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The subphylum Hexapoda (from Greek for 'six legs') or hexapods comprises the largest clade of arthropods and includes most of the extant arthropod species. It includes the crown group class Insecta (true insects), as well as the much smaller clade Entognatha, which includes three classes of wingless arthropods that were once considered insects: Collembola (springtails), Protura (coneheads) and ...
Myrmecodia is a genus of epiphytic plants, present in Indochina, Malesia, Papuasia, and Queensland, Australia. It is one of five ant-plant genera in the family Rubiaceae, the others being Anthorrhiza, Hydnophytum, Myrmephytum, and Squamellaria. [2] Myrmecophytes, or ant plants, live in a mutualistic association with a colony of ants. These ...
Insects were among the earliest terrestrial herbivores and acted as major selection agents on plants. [37] Plants evolved chemical defenses against this herbivory and the insects, in turn, evolved mechanisms to deal with plant toxins. Many insects make use of these toxins to protect themselves from their predators.
Most ant inhabitants of Cecropia plants harvest Müllerian bodies, as their primary food source. Remarkably these Müllerian bodies, found on the stalk of the leaf, are primarily glycogen . Glycogen is the principal storage carbohydrate found in animals and is extremely rare in plants.
Myrmecodia beccarii, ant-house plant, is an epiphytic plant on Melaleuca trees and others with spongy bark in the wetlands and mangroves of tropical north Queensland, Australia from Cooktown to Mission Beach. The prickly, swollen caudex develops natural hollows which are colonised by the golden ant (Philidris cordatus) in a symbiotic ...
Animals and plants in a mutually symbiotic arrangement with ants are called Myrmecophiles. In Madagascar, some gecko species in the genera Phelsuma and Lygodactylus are known to approach flatid plant-hoppers on tree-trunks from below and induce them to excrete honeydew by head nodding behaviour. The plant-hopper then raises its abdomen and ...
Afzelia africana seeds bearing elaiosomes Chelidonium majus diaspores consisting of hard-coated seeds and attached elaiosomes. Myrmecochory (/ m ɜːr m ɪ ˈ k ɒ k ɔː r i / (sometimes myrmechory); [1] from Ancient Greek: μύρμηξ, romanized: mýrmēks ("ant") and χορεία khoreíā ("circular dance") is seed dispersal by ants, an ecologically significant ant–plant interaction ...
Finally, current work focusing on ants' role in nutrient supplementation for plants has shown that in many ant-plant relationships, nutrient flow is bidirectional. One study has estimated that while 80% of the carbon in the bodies of Azteca spp. workers is supplied by the host tree ( Cecropia spp.), 90% of the Cecropia tree's nitrogen was ...