Rivera-Salinas, I.S., Hajian-Forooshani, Z., Jiménez-Soto, E., Cruz-Rodríguez, J.A., & Philpott, S.M. 2018 High intermediary mutualist density provides consistent biological control in a tripartite mutualism . Biological Control 118: 26–31
Keywords:
Notes: Understanding the ecology of mutualisms becomes a particularly important task when considering agroecosystems, as many ecosystem services are associated with mutualistic interactions. Here we report on experiments associated with an indirect pest control mutualism between the arboreal nesting ant Azteca sericeasur and coffee. This system is particularly interesting because the indirect Azteca-Coffea mutualism emerges from an Azteca-scale insect mutualism that takes place on the coffee plant. We describe this interaction structure as a mutualism dependent mutualism and ask whether the density of intermediary mutualist (scale insects, Coccus) that benefits Azteca also influences the benefits provided to coffee plants. We found that indeed Azteca’s benefit to Coffea is consistent when Coccus density is high.
