Effects of ants on predator-prey interactions among mites in agro-ecosystems

叶螨生活在树叶表面和薄蛛丝网之间的空间里。叶螨通过呆在网内来避开多面手捕食者，如蚂蚁，而螨通过离开网来避开侵入其网的捕食螨。然而，在两种捕食者都存在的情况下，蜘蛛螨相互冲突的反捕食者防御系统崩溃了;为了应对捕食螨而离开网的螨被蚂蚁捕食。这项研究提供了第一个证据，蚂蚁可能有积极的影响，生物控制蜘蛛螨的捕食螨。此外，我们还发现，在上述研究的过程中，合作网络共享对捕食者促进了蜘蛛螨的群体生活，不建立保护性网络的蜘蛛螨物种对捕食者有另一种防御。

Spider mites live in the space between leaf surfaces and thin silk webs. Spider mites avoided generalist predators such as ants by staying inside the webs, while the mites avoided predatory mites that intruded into their webs by exiting the webs. In the presence of both predators, however, the conflicting antipredator defenses of spider mites broke down; the mites that moved out of the webs in response to predatory mites were preyed upon by ants. This study offers the first evidence that ants may have a positive effect on the biological control of spider mites by predatory mites. Moreover, we also found in the course of the above study that cooperative web sharing against predators promotes group living in spider mites and that spider mite species that does not build protective webs has an alternative defense against predators.