Publication Date:
2008-01-12
Description:
Mutualisms are key components of biodiversity and ecosystem function, yet the forces maintaining them are poorly understood. We investigated the effects of removing large mammals on an ant-Acacia mutualism in an African savanna. Ten years of large-herbivore exclusion reduced the nectar and housing provided by plants to ants, increasing antagonistic behavior by a mutualistic ant associate and shifting competitive dominance within the plant-ant community from this nectar-dependent mutualist to an antagonistic species that does not depend on plant rewards. Trees occupied by this antagonist suffered increased attack by stem-boring beetles, grew more slowly, and experienced doubled mortality relative to trees occupied by the mutualistic ant. These results show that large mammals maintain cooperation within a widespread symbiosis and suggest complex cascading effects of megafaunal extinction.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Palmer, Todd M -- Stanton, Maureen L -- Young, Truman P -- Goheen, Jacob R -- Pringle, Robert M -- Karban, Richard -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2008 Jan 11;319(5860):192-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1151579.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. tmpalmer@zoo.ufl.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18187652" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
*Acacia/anatomy & histology/growth & development
;
Animals
;
*Ants/physiology
;
Beetles
;
Behavior, Animal
;
*Ecosystem
;
*Elephants
;
Insects
;
Kenya
;
*Ruminants
;
*Symbiosis
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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