<oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd">
  <dc:creator>Flatt, Thomas</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Weisser, Wolfgang W.</dc:creator>
  <dc:date>2000</dc:date>
  <dc:description xmlns:ns0="xml" ns0:lang="en">The relationship between homopterans and ants is generally thought to be mutualistic,  as both partners seem to benefit from an association. In aphids, previous studies have  shown that ant tending improves the survival and reproduction of aphid colonies,  mainly by protection of aphids from enemy attack. However, the effects of ant tending  on the fitness of individual aphids have rarely been addressed. We investigated the  effects of ant tending on life history traits of aphids feeding singly on a host plant, in  the absence of natural enemies. A factorial design allowed us to control for variation in  the level of tending effort among individual ant colonies. The presence of workers of  the ant Lasius niger had a strong positive effect on the fitness of individuals of the  aphid Metopeurum fuscoviride. Ant-tended individuals lived longer, matured earlier,  had a higher rate of reproduction, and a higher expected number of offspring than  aphids not tended by ants. An aphid’s longevity was significantly correlated with the  daily mean number of workers tending it. The strong dependence of aphid fitness on  the level of ant tending shows that ants can influence aphid life history traits even  when aphids occur singly on plants.</dc:description>
  <dc:format>application/pdf</dc:format>
  <dc:identifier>https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/307761</dc:identifier>
  <dc:identifier>https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/307761/files/2000_ema2.pdf</dc:identifier>
  <dc:language>eng</dc:language>
  <dc:relation>info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1890/0012-9658(2000)081</dc:relation>
  <dc:rights>info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess</dc:rights>
  <dc:rights>License undefined</dc:rights>
  <dc:source>Ecology. - 2000, vol. 81, no. 12, p. 3522-3529</dc:source>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns1="xml" ns1:lang="en">aphid</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns2="xml" ns2:lang="en">ant</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns3="xml" ns3:lang="en">ant tending</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns4="xml" ns4:lang="en">Homoptera</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns5="xml" ns5:lang="en">honeydew</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns6="xml" ns6:lang="en">Lasius niger</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns7="xml" ns7:lang="en">Metopeurum fusco-viride</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns8="xml" ns8:lang="en">mutualistic relationship</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns9="xml" ns9:lang="en">myrmecophily</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject>info:eu-repo/classification/udc/57</dc:subject>
  <dc:title xmlns:ns10="xml" ns10:lang="en">The effects of mutualistic ants on aphid life history traits</dc:title>
  <dc:type>http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501</dc:type>
</oai_dc:dc>