Plant chemical mediation of ant behavior

Abstract

Ants are ecologically dominant members of terrestrial communities. Ant foraging is often strongly associated with plants and depends upon associative learning of chemicals in the environment. As a result, plant chemicals can affect ant behaviors and, in so doing, have strong multi-trophic indirect effects. Plant chemicals mediate ant behaviors in the contexts of floral visitation, seed dispersal and predation, leaf cutting, interactions with ant-mutualist host plants, interactions with mutualist and prey insects in plant canopies, and plant predation of ants by carnivorous plants. Here, we review what is known about these differing contexts in which plant chemicals influence ant behavior, the mechanisms by which ants are affected by plant chemicals, and future directions within these topics.