Journal Title
Title of Journal: Oecologia
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Publisher
Springer-Verlag
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Authors: Jérôme Orivel Luc Lambs PierreJean G Malé Céline Leroy Julien Grangier Thierry Otto Angélique Quilichini Alain Dejean
Publish Date: 2010/08/04
Volume: 165, Issue: 2, Pages: 369-376
Abstract
Myrmecophytic symbioses are widespread in tropical ecosystems and their diversity makes them useful tools for understanding the origin and evolution of mutualisms Obligate ant–plants or myrmecophytes provide a nesting place and often food to a limited number of plant–ant species In exchange plant–ants protect their host plants from herbivores competitors and pathogens and can provide them with nutrients Although most studies to date have highlighted a similar global pattern of interactions in these systems little is known about the temporal structuring and dynamics of most of these associations In this study we focused on the association between the understory myrmecophyte Hirtella physophora Chrysobalanaceae and its obligate ant partner Allomerus decemarticulatus Myrmicinae An examination of the life histories and growth rates of both partners demonstrated that this plant species has a much longer lifespan up to about 350 years than its associated ant colonies up to about 21 years The size of the ant colonies and their reproductive success were strongly limited by the available nesting space provided by the host plants Moreover the resident ants positively affected the vegetative growth of their host plant but had a negative effect on its reproduction by reducing the number of flowers and fruits by more than 50 Altogether our results are important to understanding the evolutionary dynamics of ant–plant symbioses The highly specialized interaction between longlived plants and ants with a shorter lifespan produces an asymmetry in the evolutionary rates of the interaction which in return can affect the degree to which the interests of the two partners convergeWe are grateful to T Goslar from the Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory Poland and M Paterne from the LSCE CNRSCEA France for their help in the determination of the 14C age to C Trontin for her valuable assistance in the lab and to Andrea Dejean for proofreading the manuscript We would like to thank V RicoGray and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript We would also like to thank the Laboratoire Environnement de Petit Saut for furnishing logistical assistance Financial support for this study was provided by the Programme Amazonie II project 2ID of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS by the Programme Convergence 2007–2013 Région Guyane project DEGA from the European Community by a research program of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche research agreement no ANR06JCJC010901 and by the ESFEUROCORES/TECT/BIOCONTRACT program The experiments comply with the current laws of France
Keywords:
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