Latest Symbiosis Stories

Messenger molecule in oral secretions of herbivorous insects changes flower opening time of their host plants: Hummingbirds take over role as pollinators from mothsButterflies and moths are welcome visitors to many plant species. Plants attract insect pollinators with the colors, forms, nectars and scents of their flowers to ensure fertilization and reproduction. However, female moths are also threatening to the plant: Once attracted by the flower's scent, they lay their eggs on the green...

Figs and the wasps that pollinate them present one of biologists' favorite examples of a beneficial relationship between two different species. In exchange for the pollination service provided by the wasp, the fig fruit provides room and board for the wasp's developing young. However, wasps do not always pollinate the fig. Fig trees "punish" these "cheaters" by dropping unpollinated fruit, killing the wasp's offspring inside, report researchers working at the Smithsonian...

The 'raspy' cricket is also entirely new to scienceAn orchid researcher based on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and collaborating with researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) has used motion sensitive night cameras to capture the first known occurrence of a cricket functioning as a pollinator of flowering plants. Not only is this the first time this behavior has been documented in a member of the Orthoptera order of insects "“ who are better known for eating...

Spanish scientists have described the lichen Phylloblastia fortuita, new to the Iberian Peninsula and to science. Another species from the same family, Phylloblastia dispersa, is also a new entry for Europe and is the first time it has been found outside the tropics.Foliicolous lichens, symbiosis between fungi and algae, are organisms associated with tropical or sub-tropical climates, and their presence in environments such as the Iberian Peninsula, outside of the tropics, is associated with...

Broadly speaking, ants have two different feeding strategies. A large proportion of all species are "carnivorous," meaning that they are generalist predators feeding on other small animals or scavenging on their remains. Some, however, are "herbivorous". This is not to say that they only eat plants; rather, the bulk of their diets consist of plant-derived matter. For example, some forage on sticky fluids produced by plants to attract ants, called extra-floral nectar;...

Christopher Irwin Smith describes research on Joshua trees, yucca moths and the question of whether coevolution between plants and their insect pollinators produced the spectacular diversity of plants and insectsCoevolution--mutual adaptation of two or more species to one another--shapes much of the natural world and produces some of the most remarkable biological phenomena, from the exceptional speed of cheetahs and gazelles, to the virulence of the HIV and swine flu viruses.The interaction...

Symbiosis between ants and bacteria explains how leaf-cutter ants dominate tropical environmentsLeaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.Now there's a new one to add to the list: these ant farmers, like their human counterparts, depend on nitrogen-fixing bacteria to make their gardens grow.The findings, reported this week in the journal Science, document a previously unknown symbiosis between ants and bacteria, and provide insights into how leaf-cutter...

Student field crews study the ecological power of ants in Central America under the guidance of biologist John Longino"This work will be physically demanding. You will need to carry bulky sampling supplies into rugged terrain. Some sites may be swelteringly hot, others cold and rainy. You will need to move off trails into dense forested habitats. Long hikes may be required ... There will be mud and mosquitoes."Although a hard-labor camp could be a reasonable match for that...

Female plants were more likely to be colonized by the mycorrhizal fungi than male plantsThe war between the sexes has been fought on many fronts throughout time"”from humans to birds to insects, the animal kingdom is replete with species involved in their own skirmishes. A recent study by Dr. Sarah Eppley and colleagues at Portland State University published in the November issue of the American Journal of Botany (www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/full/96/11/1967) demonstrates that certain plants,...

Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees.The research, published in the November issue of the American Naturalist, is the first to document that ants bore into live trees, and it reopens a centuries-old debate on the relationship between ants and plants.Ants and certain species of plants and trees have cozy relationships....