In mutualisms, individuals exchange goods and services for net benefit. However, many
sources of variation in these interactions remain unexplored. To examine why plantdwelling
ants protect their host plants by killing herbivores, I shifted the macronutrient
balance of their background diets. Providing ants with supplemental protein caused them
to invest less in patrolling and defence activities, likely because the availability of lowcost
protein made hunting for herbivores relatively less profitable. In contrast,
supplemental sugar caused an increase in ant activity, possibly because carbohydrates
serve as ‘fuel’ for patrolling. To examine a second source of variation in this interaction,
I treated ants with an activator of PKG, a protein encoded by foraging, a gene with
behavioural functions in other taxa. PKG activation caused ants to become more
aggressive towards herbivores, causing their host plants to experience less herbivory.
This suggests that an ortholog of foraging may influence cooperation in this system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/65433 |
| Date | 18 June 2014 |
| Creators | Turner, Kyle |
| Contributors | Frederickson, Megan |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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