Ants known to defend certain species of Acacia trees from elephant predation deter the massive herbivores so effectively that they are impacting entire savanna ecosystems, according to a study ...

A new study explores a disruptive force in the delicate African ecosystem that holds consequences for even top predators like lions. The big-headed ant, first recorded on the island of Mauritius, has ...

In the 1960s, Penn biologist Dan Janzen, as part of earning his Ph.D., re-described what has become a classic example of biological mutualism: the obligate relationship between acacia-ants and ...

Postdoctoral scholar Patrick Milligan recently published a paper that he started during his doctoral studies and is continuing during his National Science Foundation fellowship in Elizabeth Pringle’s ...

Native acacia ants are killed by the smaller invasive big-headed ants, leaving whistling-thorn trees defenseless against elephants. Credit: Pat Milligan When people talk about the interconnectedness ...

When building a bird nest in ant territory, the best defense could be an offensive fungus. Swollen-thorn acacia trees are aggressively defended by multiple species of ants. And yet, several species of ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In the complex world of ant-plant partnerships, serial monogamy can help trees maximize their evolutionary fitness, a new University of Florida study shows. Trees that sequentially ...

Karen Hopkin: This is Scientific American’s Science Quickly. I’m Karen Hopkin. Hopkin: Why did the lion take down a buffalo instead of a zebra? Because of the big-headed ants! I know, I know. Sounds ...

And that’s just a sample of how those eternally busy ants are closely involved with many other species! There is much more complexity to all these examples than this space allows, and I encourage ...

Ant-acacia plants attract ants by offering specialized food and hollow thorns in which the ants live, while the ant colony in turn defends its acacia against herbivores. This mutualistic relationship ...