Abstract
The five species of seed-harvesting ants at a study site in semi-arid New South Wales comprise the most abundant trophic group of the ant community. These ants and the plant community are described briefly, and areas of potential interaction, which could influence the population dynamics of either community, are defined. A study of these interactions suggests that there are no strong short-term regulatory effects, and that the granivore-plant system is rather loosely coupled. Plant population dynamics are determined primarily by the timing and magnitude of an unpredictable rainfall, with little feed-back effect from seed-harvester activity. The ants do not appear to be limited by seed availability, and a system of buffers within the ant community dampens population fluctuations when food resources change. Such loose coupling within and between trophic levels would tend to stabilize the structure of communities subjected to extreme, variable and unpredictable environments, such as the semi-arid and arid regions of Australia.
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Briese, D.T. (1982). Relationship between the seed-harvesting ants and the plant community in a semi-arid environment. In: Buckley, R.C. (eds) Ant-plant interactions in Australia. Geobotany, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7994-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7994-9_3
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