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Coexistence through mutualist‐dependent reversal of competitive hierarchies
- Source :
- Ecology and Evolution
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- John Wiley and Sons Inc., 2017.
-
Abstract
- Mechanisms that allow for the coexistence of two competing species that share a trophic level can be broadly divided into those that prevent competitive exclusion of one species within a local area, and those that allow for coexistence only at a regional level. While the presence of aphid‐tending ants can change the distribution of aphids among host plants, the role of mutualistic ants has not been fully explored to understand coexistence of multiple aphid species in a community. The tansy plant (Tanacetum vulgare) hosts three common and specialized aphid species, with only one being tended by ants. Often, these aphids species will not coexist on the same plant but will coexist across multiple plant hosts in a field. In this study, we aim to understand how interactions with mutualistic ants and predators affect the coexistence of multiple species of aphid herbivores on tansy. We show that the presence of ants drives community assembly at the level of individual plant, that is, the local community, by favoring one ant‐tended species, Metopeurum fuscoviride, while preying on the untended Macrosiphoniella tanacetaria and, to a lesser extent, Uroleucon tanaceti. Competitive hierarchies without ants were very different from those with ants. At the regional level, multiple tansy plants provide a habitat across which all aphid species can coexist at the larger spatial scale, while being competitively excluded at the local scale. In this case, ant mutualist‐dependent reversal of the competitive hierarchy can drive community dynamics in a plant–aphid system.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Herbivore
Aphid
Ecology
interspecific interactions
mutualism
Community structure
Biology
biology.organism_classification
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
ddc
Predation
010602 entomology
aphid
Habitat
Spatial ecology
Mutualism (economic theory)
community structure
competition
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Nature and Landscape Conservation
Trophic level
Original Research
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20457758
- Volume :
- 8
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Ecology and Evolution
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e76b6f2a8ba202c73b08c3a0de0be1be