Explaining the abundance of ants in lowland tropical rainforest canopies

被引：521

作者：

Davidson, DW

Cook, SC

Snelling, RR

Chua, TH

机构：

[1] Univ Utah, Dept Biol, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 USA

[2] Nat Hist Museum Los Angeles, Entomol Sect, Los Angeles, CA 90007 USA

[3] Univ Brunei Darussalam, Dept Biol, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

来源：

SCIENCE | 2003年 / 300卷 / 5621期

关键词：

D O I：

10.1126/science.1082074

中图分类号：

O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];

学科分类号：

07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;

摘要：

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.

引用

页码：969 / 972

页数：4

共 34 条

[1] COMPARISON OF AMINO-ACID COMPLEMENTS OF FLORAL EXTRAFLORAL NECTARS [J].