ArticlePloS one2012
A carnivorous plant fed by its ant symbiont: a unique multi-faceted nutritional mutualism.
Article in PloS one, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Construction costs and tradeoffs in carnivorous pitcher plant leaves: towards a pitcher leaf economics spectrum.Annals of botany · 2025Review
- Distinctive plastome evolution in carnivorous angiosperms.BMC plant biology · 2023Article
- Exo- and endophytic fungi enable rapid transfer of nutrients from ant waste to orchid tissue.The New phytologist · 2023Article
- Omics Approaches in Uncovering Molecular Evolution and Physiology of Botanical Carnivory.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Novel pitcher plant-spider mutualism is dependent upon environmental resource abundance.Oecologia · 2018Article
- Article
- Coprophagous features in carnivorous Nepenthes plants: a task for ureases.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Exploring fungus-plant N transfer in a tripartite ant-plant-fungus mutualism.Annals of botany · 2017Article
- Mutualists or parasites? Context-dependent influence of symbiotic fly larvae on carnivorous investment in the Albany pitcher plant.Royal Society open science · 2016Article
- Proteome analysis of digestive fluids in Nepenthes pitchers.Annals of botany · 2016Article
- Different pitcher shapes and trapping syndromes explain resource partitioning in Nepenthes species.Ecology and evolution · 2016Article
- A novel insight into the cost-benefit model for the evolution of botanical carnivory.Annals of botany · 2015Review
- Fluid physico-chemical properties influence capture and diet in Nepenthes pitcher plants.Annals of botany · 2015Article
- New evidence on the origin of carnivorous plants.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2015Article
- Capture mechanism in Palaeotropical pitcher plants (Nepenthaceae) is constrained by climate.Annals of botany · 2013Article
- Mutualistic ants contribute to tank-bromeliad nutrition.Annals of botany · 2013Article
- Article
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5 authors.
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Abstract
Scarcity of essential nutrients has led plants to evolve alternative nutritional strategies, such as myrmecotrophy (ant-waste-derived nutrition) and carnivory (invertebrate predation). The carnivorous plant Nepenthes bicalcarata grows in the Bornean peatswamp forests and is believed to have a mutualistic relationship with its symbiotic ant Camponotus schmitzi. However, the benefits provided by the ant have not been quantified. We tested the hypothesis of a nutritional mutualism, using foliar isotopic and reflectance analyses and by comparing fitness-related traits between ant-inhabited and uninhabited plants. Plants inhabited by C. schmitzi produced more leaves of greater area and nitrogen content than unoccupied plants. The ants were estimated to provide a 200% increase in foliar nitrogen to adult plants. Inhabited plants also produced more and larger pitchers containing higher prey biomass. C. schmitzi-occupied pitchers differed qualitatively in containing C. schmitzi wastes and captured large ants and flying insects. Pitcher abortion rates were lower in inhabited plants partly because of herbivore deterrence as herbivory-aborted buds decreased with ant occupation rate. Lower abortion was also attributed to ant nutritional service. The ants had higher δ(15)N values than any tested prey, and foliar δ(15)N increased with ant occupation rate, confirming their predatory behaviour and demonstrating their direct contribution to the plant-recycled N. We estimated that N. bicalcarata derives on average 42% of its foliar N from C. schmitzi wastes, (76% in highly-occupied plants). According to the Structure Independent Pigment Index, plants without C. schmitzi were nutrient stressed compared to both occupied plants, and pitcher-lacking plants. This attests to the physiological cost of pitcher production and poor nutrient assimilation in the absence of the symbiont. Hence C. schmitzi contributes crucially to the nutrition of N. bicalcarata, via protection of assimilatory organs, enhancement of prey capture, and myrmecotrophy. This combination of carnivory and myrmecotrophy represents an outstanding strategy of nutrient sequestration.
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