Explaining the abundance of ants in lowland tropical rainforest canopies
Explaining the abundance of ants in lowland tropical rainforest canopies
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DOI：
10.1126/science.1082074
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发表时间：
2003-05-09
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
Chua, TH
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Davidson, DW;Cook, SC;Chua, TH
在热带雨林的树冠层中，蚂蚁的数量异常丰富，这使得人们猜测，许多树栖蚂蚁类群主要以植物和昆虫分泌物的“食草动物”为食。基于植物、已知食草动物、节肢动物捕食者和来自亚马逊河和婆罗洲的蚂蚁的氮（N）同位素比值，我们发现许多树栖蚂蚁物种通过捕食和清除获得很少的N。蚂蚁和它们的半翅目营养微生物的微共生体可能发挥关键作用的营养类群专门对N-贫分泌物。对植物来说，生物防御和蚂蚁和半翅目昆虫的食草性的综合成本是巨大的，而食草性昆虫造成的森林损失远远超过目前的估计。
The extraordinary abundance of ants in tropical rainforest canopies has led to speculation that numerous arboreal ant taxa feed principally as "herbivores" of plant and insect exudates. Based on nitrogen (N) isotope ratios of plants, known herbivores, arthropod predators, and ants from Amazonia and Borneo, we find that many arboreal ant species obtain little N through predation and scavenging. Microsymbionts of ants and their hemipteran trophobionts might play key roles in the nutrition of taxa specializing on N-poor exudates. For plants, the combined costs of biotic defenses and herbivory by ants and tended Hemiptera are substantial, and forest losses to insect herbivores vastly exceed current estimates.