Page 102 - The Miracle in the Ant

Mutual Assistance

What the piper plant does is not a one-sided sacrifice because, dur-
ing this mutual living process, the ant also produces nutritional material
for its host.
When the ant lump in the trunk of the plant decays, it is taken inside
the inner soft tissue of the plant as hydrous ammonia. This fluid is very
beneficial for the plant. It increases its efficiency. As an addition, the
breathing ant colony members increase the carbon dioxide concentra-
tion of the plant and ensure its being healthier.
Some research has been done to understand if piper ants provide
food for their plants and it has been proven that food-seeking Pheidole
ants have brought in certain particles like spores, weed pieces and moth
scales. Ants keep these foods that they carry in in small sacks in which
they keep larvae, and the plant takes in the required minerals from these
foods.

Strategy Expert, Pheidole

Pheidole ants are quite peaceful. They move slowly. They neither at-
tack, nor bite. Yet these ants use a shrewd strategy to protect themselves
and their hosts, the piper plants.
Many insects like caterpillars that eat leaves lay their eggs on the
plants. Ants remove this danger immediately. Termite eggs left on leaves
of piper plants are noticed by worker ants within one hour. Then they
pick them up one by one. They carry the egg to the edge of the leaf in
their chin and let it drop. Researchers placed termite eggs in the larvae
chambers as food for ant larvae. But the result was the same and the
ants removed everything that could harm them or the plant right away. 71

Invader Aphid

Another creature who harms the piper is the invader wheat aphid
(Ambates melanobs). The wheat aphid attacks the majority of plants
without ants and kills them by piercing the trunk of the plant through to
the inside. But these micro invaders cannot be very successful if the
plant has ant guards. Ants attack the defenceless soft built wheat aphid
larvae as soon as they start tunnelling into the inner part of the trunk.

Kar›nca Mucizesi
102 THE MIRACLE IN THE ANT