Ecology of ant-plant mutualisms
plant demography
Amazonia
Plant Demography
Plant-Animal Interactions
BDFFP
mutualisms
Ants that establish colonies inside of plants and in return defend their host-plants from herbivores are one of the defining features of lowland tropical forests, yet they have remained conspicuously overlooked by conservation biologists. My collaborators and I are investigating 1) the factors structuring ant communities associated with these plants and 2) how fragmentation-related changes in the density and diversity of ants, host-plants, and herbivores influence mutualism dynamics. Collaborators on this project include Heraldo Vasconcelos (Universidade Federal de Uberlandia), Brian Inouye (Florida State University), Thiago Izzo (Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso), Charlotte Lee (FSU), Heather Passmore (UF).