- Pseudomyrmex spinicola
Taxobox | name = "Pseudomyrmex spinicola"
image_caption =
regnum =Animal ia
phylum =Arthropod a
classis =Insect a
ordo =Hymenoptera
familia =Formicidae
genus = "Pseudomyrmex "
species = "P. spinicola"
binomial = "Pseudomyrmex spinicola"
binomial_authority = Emery, 1890"Pseudomyrmex spinicola" is a species of red
myrmecophyte -inhabitatingneotropical ant s which are found only inNicaragua andCosta Rica . They live in the thorns of a tropical tree, "Acacia collinsii ", feeding on nectaries along with the protein andlipid -rich belsian bodies [Cite book |author=Zuchowski, Willow |year=2005 |title=A Guide to the Tropical Plants of Costa Rica |publisher=Distribuidores Zona Tropical, S.A: Miami, FL] . These bodies are named forThomas Belt , a naturalist who first described the interactions between acacias and ants in his 1874 book "Naturalist in Nicaragua"."P. spinicola" are the more aggressive among a number of "A. collinsii"-inhabitating species that engage in a classic case of
mutualism . The ants receive colony space in "A. collinsii" to support their population structure. In return, the ants actively defend the tree from herbivory and often from competing plants nearby, clearing the forest floor of other seedlings. Sometimes, a large "P. spinicola" colony may be spread between two or more trees, protecting each tree within their colony and possibly grooming "A. collinsii" seedlings within that microhabitat to be used by the colony.Populations of mutualistic myrmecophyte-inhabitating ants may be space limited [cite journal |quotes=no |author=Fonseca, Carlos |title=Amazonian ant-plant interactions and the nesting space limitation hypothesis |journal=
Journal of Tropical Ecology |volume=15 |year=1999 |pages=807–825 |doi=10.1017/S0266467499001194] , and therefore "P. spinicola" use the largest-volume thorns for the queen's chamber and other large-volume thorns for egg nurseries [cite journal |author=Gorbatkin, Chad, Samwick Haynor, Sarah Isbey & Sonia Lei |title=The colony architecture of "Pseudomyrmex spinicola" in the ant-plant "Acacia collinsii" |journal=Dartmouth Studies in Tropical Ecology |year=2007 |pages=in press] . The smallest eggs will be found in the queen's chamber, before being redistributed to other larger thorns to be nursed through early life stages.References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
