Abstract
Plants and ants engage in diverse mutualistic interactions that contribute to their adaptive fitness. However, the presence of ants in flowers can generate conflicts between plants and pollinators. These interactions are little studied in temperate grasslands, despite the ubiquitous interactions between ants and plants in this region. In this study, we investigated how the presence and mobility of Camponotus termitarius (Emery) ants on Eryngium chamissonis Urb. affect the frequency of insect visitation on the flowers of this plant. We constructed contrasts and tested using generalized linear mixed models (I) whether the presence of any organism in the inflorescences decreases insect visitation, (II) whether it is really the presence of ants that decreases visitor interaction, and (III) whether the ant behavior has a greater effect on potentially reducing visits. We showed that the interaction of ants with E. chamissonis affected the number of visits to flowers, mainly reducing the frequency of the two main groups, bees and flies. These effects were consistent regardless of the ants' behavior, indicating that the mere presence of these insects on flowers can alter the frequencies of floral visitors. Our work is one of the first to report the effects of the interaction between ants and flowers in temperate grasslands in southern South America. The observed effects may go beyond the simple risk of predation and competition for resources, involving broader ecological implications for this ant–plant interaction, including a negative impact on the reproduction of E. chamissonis.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Helena Romanowski and Viviane Ferro for laboratory support and other essential activities related to this research, the entire team of the Ant Ecology and Behavior Laboratory (LACEF/UFPel) for their assistance in the field expeditions, the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for promoting this research (process number 88887.667264/2022-00), and the Graduate Program in Animal Biology—UFRGS.
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AC, SFS, and DAC contributed to the conception and sampling design of the study. Material preparation and data collection were carried out by DAC, LMC, IMS, and NAA. The organization, data analysis, and preparation of the graphs were carried out by DAC, AC, and SFS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by DAC, and all authors commented on earlier versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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We declare that our work has no conflicts of interest. This study was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) by a Brazilian government agency.
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Carvalho, D.A., Costa, L.M., Silva, I.M. et al. Beyond nectar: exploring the effects of ant presence on the interaction of flower visitors of a rosette in grassland. Arthropod-Plant Interactions (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-024-10049-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-024-10049-6