BIOLOGY 2F03 Lecture Notes - Nectar, Beltian Body, Camassia Quamash
Document Summary
Newly mated queens find unoccupied seedlings or shoots of bullshorn acacia. Usually colony starts with one fertilized queen. A young queen excavates entrance in one green thorn lays first eggs in forage independently thorn begins to forage. Gets nectar for herself and developing larvae from the foliar nectaries and the beltian bodies colony grows (workers) actively take up chores of colony. Ants clearly benefit from the arrangement but what is the benefit to the plant. Ants are the abundance of herbivorous insects on bullshorn acacia. Acacia shoots without ants have much larger numbers of herbivorous insects. Ants have similar arrangements with our native trees (e. g. aspen where they tend aphids; which obtain sugar from the plants) survival of acacia shoots with and without resident ants survival, growth rate and visible abundants of insects. Growth of acacia with and without resident ants. Acacia shoots with ants grew much faster.
