Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In this way, ants can gain extra protein and ensure efficient resource extraction by maintaining honeydew flow rates that do not exceed the ants' collection capabilities. [3] Even with some predation by ants, aphid colonies can reach larger densities with tending ants than colonies without.
For example, disproportionately large numbers of ant heads, containing the most nutritionally dense parts of the ant, are found in large numbers within these chambers. [ 5 ] [ page needed ] This symbiosis allows the plants to effectively gather nutrients (via the ants) from a much larger area than the roots ever could cover.
Myrmecotrophy, meaning "ant-fed," is the ability of plants to absorb nutrients from debris piles left by ant nests or, in the case of Nepenthes bicalcarata, from ant egesta. [13] The tropical tree Cecropia peltata obtains 98% of its nitrogen from the waste deposited by its ant counterparts.
Energy flow is the flow of energy through living things within an ecosystem. [1] All living organisms can be organized into producers and consumers , and those producers and consumers can further be organized into a food chain .
They also can be swept away in the downpour, since ants, like most insects, can float. Also, ants will scavenge for food whatever the weather, and your kitchen could be the perfect place.
Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant individually or collectively, as well as dispersed in both space and time. The patterns of seed dispersal are determined in large part by the dispersal mechanism and this has important implications for the demographic and genetic structure of plant populations, as well as migration patterns and ...
The scale of the farming done by fungus-farming ants can be compared to human's industrialized farming. [5] [11] [78] [79] A colony can "[defoliate] a mature eucalyptus tree overnight". [33] The cutting of leaves to grow fungus to feed millions of ants per colony has a large ecological impact in the subtropical areas in which they reside. [7]
Acacia-ant symbiosis is the interaction between myrmecophilous Vachellia trees (ant acacias) and ants that nest on them (acacia ants).Obligate acacia ants dwell in the gall-like domatia within the swollen stipular spines of African or Central American ant acacia species, and they also take the food (nectar or Beltian bodies) offered by the tree.