Effect of Mutualist Partner Identity on Plant Demography
Abstract
Mutualisms play a central role in the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. Because many mutualisms have strong demographic effects, interspecific variation in partner quality could have important consequences for population dynamics. Nevertheless, few studies have quantified how a mutualist partner influences population growth rates, and still fewer have compared the demographic impacts of multiple partner species. We used integral projection models parameterized with three years of census data to compare the demographic effects of two ant species, Crematogaster laevis and Pheidole minutula, on populations of the Amazonian ant plant Maieta guianensis. Estimated population growth rates were positive (i.e., lambda