species-specific seed dispersal in an obligate ant-plant mutualism种特异的种子散布在一个专蚁树共生.pdfVIP

Species-Specific Seed Dispersal in an Obligate Ant-Plant Mutualism 1 2 3 1 Elsa Youngsteadt , Jeniffer Alvarez Baca , Jason Osborne , Coby Schal * 1 Department of Entomology and W. M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America, 2 Facultad ´ ´ de Ciencias Biologicas, Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Cusco, Peru, 3 Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America Abstract Throughout lowland Amazonia, arboreal ants collect seeds of specific plants and cultivate them in nutrient-rich nests, forming diverse yet obligate and species-specific symbioses called Neotropical ant-gardens (AGs). The ants depend on their symbiotic plants for nest stability, and the plants depend on AGs for substrate and nutrients. Although the AGs are limited to specific participants, it is unknown at what stage specificity arises, and seed fate pathways in AG epiphytes are undocumented. Here we examine the specificity of the ant-seed interaction by comparing the ant community observed at general food baits to ants attracted to and removing seeds of the AG plant Peperomia macrostachya. We also compare seed removal rates under treatments that excluded vertebrates, arthropods, or both. In the bait study, only three of 70 ant species collected P. macrostachya seeds, and 84% of observed seed removal by ants was attributed to the AG ant Camponotus femoratus. In the exclusion experiment, arthropod exclusion significantly reduced seed remov