Type of relationship of ants and aphids
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- Ant and aphid
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- Insect symbiosis
Ants and aphids have a close relationship with each other. The first receive food from symbiosis, and the second protection. Gardeners, when they want to remove pests from their plants, begin to fight aphids. When she disappears from the beds, then those who like to feast on her juice also disappear.
Where aphids live and what they eat
Insect nature cheated. It cannot defend itself against its natural enemies: the ladybirds and ground beetles. The parasite of plants does not have a shell, poison or powerful jaws. His short legs are not able to quickly jump and run.He has a small proboscis, which sucks the juice from the plants.
Aphids harm the flora as follows:
- It spreads the fungus, which covers the leaves with sticky mucus and does not allow the plant to grow normally.
- Sucking the sap, the insect damages trees, bushes and grass. Green leaves curl and cease to develop.
The plants on which the aphids appeared are beginning to fade. They do not bloom, do not bear fruit and can not survive the winter.
On a note!
They eat not only ants. It is hunted by bees, birds, ticks, spiders.
The pest, in order to obtain the necessary elements from the juice, must drink it more than it is capable of digesting. Aphid removes excess fluid in the abdomen. They are mixed with its secretions and acquire a cloying taste. The pad attracts other insects that become guards of parasites.
How does an ant live?
Ants live family. In the anthill is uteruswhose purpose is to produce offspring. Males and females with wings, soldiers and working individuals can hatch from eggs. The purpose of the latter is to care for the nest and collect food for the whole colony. Relationship in the ant family built on a strict hierarchy.
Arthropods are sweet teeth. Therefore, they often run to visit a person in order to enjoy food waste. And in nature and in summer cottages they grow aphids to eat its sweet secretions.
On a note!
Summer residents often wonder what ants breed aphids. In garden plots, it is mainly engaged in breeding and milking. black and yellow ants. In the forest, aphid divorced redhead view ant family.
To get a fall, ants milked aphids using antennae.
Insect symbiosis
Where it feeds itself aphid, the ant species will surely fuss. From the side it may seem that the workers act as shepherds, and the pests are their "cattle". Then the logical question arises, why ants aphid.
Interesting!
Arthropods use plant pests as a source of nutrition. They drink sweet pad and store it in their nests.
The symbiosis of aphids and ants is as follows:
- Ants guard their "flock" from enemies. They attack insects that feed on aphids.
- "Shepherds" control the number of "herds" by eating the bred individuals.
- For the winter, workers carry pests into an anthill so that they do not die of cold.
Ants do not just drink the pad. They store it for a hungry and dry time. The juice is stored in the fellows, who have increased goiter. These family members cannot leave anthill and serve as a reservoir for storing the elixir.
Arthropods jealously guard their source of food. If they have to move, they carry the aphids with them in order to breed them in a new place.
The type of relationship between ants and aphids is collaboration. The first protect and help to be fruitful, and the second give food.
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