Affiliation:
1. Department of Bioorganic Chemistry, Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Ecology, Hans-Knöll-Strasse 8, D-07745 Jena, Germany.
Abstract
Obligate
Acacia
ant plants house mutualistic ants as a defense mechanism and provide them with extrafloral nectar (EFN). Ant/plant mutualisms are widespread, but little is known about the biochemical basis of their species specificity. Despite its importance in these and other plant/animal interactions, little attention has been paid to the control of the chemical composition of nectar. We found high invertase (sucrose-cleaving) activity in
Acacia
EFN, which thus contained no sucrose. Sucrose, a disaccharide common in other EFNs, usually attracts nonsymbiotic ants. The EFN of the ant acacias was therefore unattractive to such ants. The
Pseudomyrmex
ants that are specialized to live on
Acacia
had almost no invertase activity in their digestive tracts and preferred sucrose-free EFN. Our results demonstrate postsecretory regulation of the carbohydrate composition of nectar.
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Reference35 articles.
1. H. G. Baker, I. Baker, in Biochemical Aspects of Evolutionary Biology, M. Nitecki, Ed. (Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982), pp. 131–171.
2. The Biology of Nectaries 1983
3. The Excretory Function of Higher Plants 1993
4. H. G. Baker, I. Baker, Nature241, 543 (1973).
5. Response of fire ants (Formicidae: Solenopsis invicta and S.gerninata) to artificial nectars with amino acids
Cited by
135 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献