Species diversity and biological trait function: Effectiveness of ant?plant mutualism decreases as ant species diversity increases
Species diversity and biological trait function: Effectiveness of ant?plant mutualism decreases as ant species diversity increases
复制标题
物种多样性和生物性状功能：随着蚂蚁物种多样性的增加，蚂蚁植物互利共生的有效性降低
DOI：
10.1111/1365-2435.13859
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发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
5.2
通讯作者：
Tagawa Jun
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Yamawo Akira;Suzuki Nobuhiko;Tagawa Jun
生态学和进化研究的主要关注点之一是预测与生物多样性程度相关的群落功能。为了阐明生物多样性和植物防御性状表达之间的关系，我们调查了蚂蚁-植物防御互惠共生的先锋植物日本野桐在日本各地的几个网站。为了揭示野外蚂蚁与植物相互作用的变化，我们测量了取食花蜜的蚂蚁的物种丰富度以及每种蚂蚁与植物之间的相互作用强度（每种蚂蚁对植物的访问频率）。我们还调查了EFNs和FBs在研究地点的天然植物种群中的表达。为了评估每种蚂蚁的防御质量，我们通过实验估计了优势蚂蚁的攻击性。为了研究蚂蚁物种丰富度和蚂蚁防御功能之间的联系，我们进行了一个蚂蚁排斥实验和一个普通花园实验，以澄清蚂蚁的防御功效是否与蚂蚁物种丰富度有关。我们发现蚂蚁物种丰富度与蚂蚁物种的平均相互作用强度、攻击性蚂蚁物种的相互作用强度和每片叶子的EFN数量之间存在负相关关系。在蚂蚁物种丰富度高的地点，蚂蚁间接防御的有效性较差。当在相同的环境中栽培，植物从网站与低蚂蚁物种丰富度开发了更多的EFN每叶比那些从网站与高蚂蚁物种丰富度。我们的研究结果表明，兼性蚂蚁植物防御互惠关系被削弱的网站，蚂蚁物种丰富度高，导致EFN每叶的数量减少。物种丰富度和间接性状功能之间的这种联系可能有助于我们理解复杂生物群落中各种物种性状的进化模式。
One of the major concerns of ecological and evolutionary research is the prediction of community function in relation to the degree of biodiversity. To clarify the relationship between biodiversity and the expression of plant defence traits, we investigated ant–plant defensive mutualism in the pioneer plantMallotus japonicusat several sites across Japan. The plant bears ant‐attracting extrafloral nectar (EFN) and food bodies (FBs) as indirect defence traits.To reveal variations in ant–plant interactions in the field, we measured species richness of nectar‐feeding ants and interaction strength between each ant species and the plant (visiting frequency of each ant species to the plant). We also investigated the expression of EFNs and FBs in natural plant populations at the study sites. To assess the defensive quality of each ant species, we then experimentally estimated the aggressiveness of the dominant ant species. To examine the link between ant species richness and the defensive function of ants, we conducted an ant‐exclusion experiment and a common garden experiment to clarify whether the defence efficacy of ants varied in relation to ant species richness.Ant species richness differed among the study sites. We found negative relationships between ant species richness and the mean interaction strength of ant species, the interaction strength of aggressive ant species and the number of EFNs per leaf. The effectiveness of indirect defence by ants was poor at sites where ant species richness was high. When cultivated in the same environment, plants from sites with low ant species richness developed a larger number of EFNs per leaf than those from sites with high ant species richness.Our results suggest that facultative ant–plant defensive mutualism is weakened at sites where ant species richness is high, resulting in a decrease in the number of EFNs per leaf. Such a link between species richness and an indirect trait function may help us to understand the evolutionary patterns of various species traits in complex biological communities.A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.