Problems Outstanding In Ant-Plant Interaction Research

Abstract

Abstract The last few decades have witnessed a phenomenal growth in our understanding of ant-plant interactions. Nevertheless, many important questions remain to be answered. The five topics discussed here have been selected to show that these questions are both fundamental and diverse and that antplant research may be seminal in advancing our understanding of species interactions, their genetics, and their role in population dynamics and community organization. My remarks will be confined almost wholly to those interactions that are regarded as mutualistic but some of the major points apply equally to other types of interaction such as leaf-cutting and seed-eating.