MORE AGGRESSIVE ANT SPECIES (HYMENOPTERA, FORMICIDAE) PROVIDE BETTER PROTECTION FOR SOFT SCALES AND MEALYBUGS (HOMOPTERA, COCCIDAE, PSEUDOCOCCIDAE)

For 11 sets of interacting species near Madang, Papua New Guinea, coccoids attended by relatively inoffensive ants were more heavily parasitized than those attended by more aggressive ants. This has not been demonstrated previously. Ant exclusion experiments for four of these sets showed that this correlation was due to active protection of the coccoids from both predation and parasitization, though the precise form and effectiveness of this protection differed between different sets of interacting species.