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33 Seed Harvesting By Ants In Australia
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Published:August 1991
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Abstract
Seed harvesting by ants refers to the removal and subsequent consumption of seeds (i.e. seed predation), as distinct from the dispersal of seeds possessing an ant-attracting appendage (i.e. myrmecochory). Outside Australia, seed harvesting is primarily a phenomenon of arid regions. The seeds of ephemeral plants represent a valuable food source in desert environments, which typically support large populations of granivores, mostly rodents, birds, and ants (Mares and Rosenzweig 1978; Brown et al. 1979; Abramsky 1983). The ants are primarily species of the myrmicine genera Pogonomyrmex, Messor, Veromessor, Monomorium and Pheidole, and, although strictly they are not specialist granivores (Bohart and Knowlton 1953; Brown et al. 1979), seeds nevertheless constitute a major portion of their diets. Foraging by these ants can have a marked impact on seed densities and distributions (Reichman 1979) and consequently on the community structure of desert plants (Inouye et al. 1980). Most of these ant species are confined to deserts, and harvester ants are often absent altogether from other habitats (e.g. Brown et al. 1975). Harvester ants can be prominent in seasonally arid habitats, such as in mediterranean California (Hobbs 1985), tropical Mexico (Carrol and Risch 1984), and African savannahs (Levieux 1983), but there are no records of them being important in temperate habitats anywhere in America, Europe, or Africa.
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