ANTS AND PLANTS

Do ants benefit plants? Like so many things in nature, the interrelationships among
organisms are far more complicated than it first appears. Plants rely on ants for
many things but not pollination, the sexual act of transferring pollen from one flower
to the other. Only 12 plants (5 of which are orchids) have ants as the proposed
pollinators. Even in these dozen we might be dealing with guilt by association. In
most of these 12, one or more of the following critical pieces of information is
missing: the observation of pollen actually being transplanted from one flower to
another and/or the demonstration that ant pollinators produce live, i.e. fertile seeds.
This second piece of information is particularly important because ants excrete
antibiotics that coat their outer surface. Such excretions have been repeatedly
shown to reduce pollen germination. Thus, even if the pollen gets to the female
portion of the flower, it may not germinate.
Ants do appear, however, to be important distributors of seeds, particularly in our
area. Seeds of many of the herbs that brighten our forest floors with a carpet of
spring flowers have food bodies (elaiosomes) attached to their seeds. In New York
beech/maple forests, over 50 percent of the spring blooming herbs have seeds with
elaiosomes. Biologists speculate that these food packets have essential compounds
(steroid-like substances) needed for normal development of the ant young. The
seeds produced by these herbs are toted back to the ant hill. The food packet is
devoured, but not the seed. This is the reward offered to the plant. The soil
surrounding the surviving seeds is enriched by ant droppings and aerated and
drained by the tunnels. Asarum canadensis (Wild Ginger) Claytonia virginiana
(Spring Beauty), Erythronium americanum (Trout lily), Hepatica acutiloba (Hepatica),
Hexastylis sp. (Ginger, Little Brown Jugs or Little Brown Pigs) Sangunaria
canadensis (Bloodroot), Trillium grandiflorum (Trillium), Viola blanda and Viola
canadensis (Violets), and Uvularia sp. (Bellwort), common members of our moist
forest spring flora are some of the plants species that appear to be distributed by
ants.
Ants also provide important defense mechanisms against herbivores and other plant
predators. This role was brought home to me quite forcibly while visiting Costa Rica.
I was walking along a dirt road sandwiched between two cultivated fields when a
wonderfully shaded spot was offered by a weedy Cecropia tree. Its large umbrella-
shaped leaves beckoned me to stay awhile, rest, mop my brow, and have a sip from
my canteen. Propping on the truck, I suddenly became aware of a war being waged
on my hand by a fiery attack force of tiny ants. The pain was sudden and intense.
There was no competition; I lost. I found out later that these fierce creatures were
members of the aptly named genus Azteca. The stems of this shrubby Cecropia are
hollow. Colonies of ants live within these apartments. The plant not only provides
shelter but food as well. Specially produced food packets are found on the leaves
solely for the use of ants. The ants in return defend the plant from all dangers, real or
perceived (for example, me).
Bert Holldabler and E.O. Wilson in their very readable treatise on ants, list nearly 100
genera of plants in the tropics that have such an ant defense mechanism
(mymecolphily). Although mymecolphily appears to be more common in the tropics,
the leaves of our tolerant fern, Pteridium aquilinum (Brachen Fern) produce special
nectar glands frequently visited by ants.
Next time you pick peonies and find them crawling with ants attracted by peony-
produced sugar, you might just pause to wonder what the ants are doing for the
plant.
Reference:

http://www.uscupstate.edu/academics/arts_sciences/natural_science/Herbarium/D
efault.aspx?id=2204