ArticlePloS one2012
Nectar theft and floral ant-repellence: a link between nectar volume and ant-repellent traits?
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 13 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Phenolic Compounds in Nectar ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Emerging Trends in Ant-Pollinator Conflict in Extrafloral Nectary-Bearing Plants.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Visual-, Olfactory-, and Nectar-Taste-Based Flower Aposematism.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Review
- Testing the Distraction Hypothesis: Do extrafloral nectaries reduce ant-pollinator conflict?The Journal of ecology · 2019Article
- Indirect effects of mutualism: ant-treehopper associations deter pollinators and reduce reproduction in a tropical shrub.Oecologia · 2018Article
- Ant-Pollinator Conflict Results in Pollinator Deterrence but no Nectar Trade-Offs.Frontiers in plant science · 2018Article
- Article
- Few Ant Species Play a Central Role Linking Different Plant Resources in a Network in Rupestrian Grasslands.PloS one · 2016Article
- Lotus japonicus flowers are defended by a cyanogenic β-glucosidase with highly restricted expression to essential reproductive organs.Plant molecular biology · 2015Article
- Review
- Pollination Services of Mango Flower Pollinators.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2015Article
- Floral visitation by the Argentine ant reduces pollinator visitation and seed set in the coast barrel cactus, Ferocactus viridescens.Oecologia · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
As flower visitors, ants rarely benefit a plant. They are poor pollinators, and can also disrupt pollination by deterring other flower visitors, or by stealing nectar. Some plant species therefore possess floral ant-repelling traits. But why do particular species have such traits when others do not? In a dry forest in Costa Rica, of 49 plant species around a third were ant-repellent at very close proximity to a common generalist ant species, usually via repellent pollen. Repellence was positively correlated with the presence of large nectar volumes. Repellent traits affected ant species differently, some influencing the behaviour of just a few species and others producing more generalised ant-repellence. Our results suggest that ant-repellent floral traits may often not be pleiotropic, but instead could have been selected for as a defence against ant thieves in plant species that invest in large volumes of nectar. This conclusion highlights to the importance of research into the cost of nectar production in future studies into ant-flower interactions.
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Registered trials
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