Relationship Provides Nutrients, Protection

Biological Strategy

Ant plants

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Protect From Animals

Animals–organisms that range from microscopic to larger than a bus–embody a wide variety of harms to living systems, including other animals. They threaten through predation, herbivory, defense, and parasitism, and they compete for resources such as water, nutrients, and space. Any given living organism commonly faces threats from a variety of animals, requiring strategies that effectively defend from each. Trout and other bony fish, for example, escape predators by having scales made of very thin, flake-like pieces of bone covered with slippery mucus. They also have behavioral strategies such as camouflage, fast swimming, and twisting and turning to achieve release from a predator’s grip.

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Cooperate/Compete Between Different Species

From parasitism to mutualisms, there are endless interactions between organisms in nature. Interactions between species that lead to a negative outcome for one species are known as competition. Cooperation occurs when organisms work together for the benefit of each organism or species. While competition often occurs over resources or mates, the more biologists have begun to look for examples of cooperation in nature, the more they have found. For example, around 90% of plants have a beneficial partnership with fungi. Fungi provide the plant with nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, in exchange for sugars from the plant.

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Cycle Nutrients

In ecosystems, there is no such thing as waste. Instead, one organism’s waste can be considered as another organism’s resource, and the cycling of nutrients may be the most important form of recycling in living systems. But sometimes those nutrients are transformed by one organism into a form that isn’t readily used by other organisms. For example, lignin is a complex organic molecule found in the cell walls of plants. In a forest, it’s one of the hardest molecules to break down in woody vegetation. Therefore, ecosystems include organisms that are particularly well-adapted to break down different types of nutrients. In the case of lignin, some fungi and bacteria release lignin-modifying enzymes that can break down the lignin to form carbohydrates and other life-supporting chemicals.

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Flowering Plants

Clade Angiosperms (“receptacle seed”): Dandelions, oaks, grasses, cacti, apples

With 416 families containing some 300,000 known species, angiosperms are the most diverse group of plants, and they can be found around the globe in a wide variety of habitats. They are characterized by seeds that grow enclosed in ovaries, which are enclosed in flowers. The floral organs then develop into fruits of myriad kinds and dimensions, from simple seed casings on maples to elaborate fleshy growths like papayas. The oldest flower known from fossils, Montsechia vidalii, appeared during the Jurassic Period 130 million years ago. They are the primary food source for herbivorous animals, which in turn makes them the indirect food source for carnivores as well.

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Ant-plants and their ant lodgers gain nutrients and protection thanks to their mutualistic relationship.

Image: J.D. Hooker / Wikimedia Commons /

Myrmecodia platytyrea subsp. antoinii

Image: Dave kimble / Wikimedia Commons /

Myrmecodia beccarii (Ant Plant) growing epiphytically on Lophostemom suaveolens with Dischidia nummularia (Button Orchid - not a true orchid) in wetlands of tropical north Queensland, Australia. You can see Dischidia flowers silhouetted against the sky in the fork of the tree, and three tear-drop shaped fruits immediately above the two largest Myrmecodia leaves.

“One group of plants, the ant-plants, provide even more lavish accomodation for their ant-lodgers. They are epiphytes, and are very common growing on the branches of mangroves. In such a position, without roots in the ground, they are in particular need of mineral nutrients. Their guests provide it. The ant-plant’s stem is swollen into a globe the size of a football and armoured on the outside by prickles. Ants swarm all over it, scurrying in and out of holes on the surface. Within, there are a number of large interconnected chambers. Some are the ants’ living quarters. There the queen sits, steadily producing her eggs, and there too are the nurseries where the young larvae are kept and reared. These apartments have smooth light-coloured walls. But other chambers are different. These have darker walls which are covered with small warty outgrowths. Here the ants deposit the remains of their insect meals and their droppings. Both are rich in phosphates and nitrates, exactly the nutrients that the plant badly needs since, hanging on the branches of a mangrove tree in a brackish swamp, it is cut off from the soil. It absorbs them through the walls of these compartments and so is able to flourish in one of the most difficult and impoverished of habitats for a plant. But it can only do so because its insect lodgers pay rent by feeding it.” (Attenborough 1995:209-211)

Last Updated September 14, 2016

References

Book

The Private Life of Plants

BBC Books | 21/08/1995 | David Attenborough

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