Scientists discovered that swollen-thorn acacias invested more in ant rewards during a drought, suggesting that mutualistic interactions play a crucial role in the plant’s survival, even during ...

Mutualism describes a relationship that benefits both parties – the win-win of our world. A new study reports on a mutualism that goes from ants to trees to elephants to lions and zebras. It serves as ...

Why would bees be attracted to spine bases or the tubercles they emerge from? I watched them crawling from old tubercle to old tubercle, stopping at each one briefly as though it was a flower. Why are ...

A new North Carolina State University study finds that climate change could be destabilizing the mutualistic relationships between insects and plants. The findings could portend the future fracturing ...

A new North Carolina State University study finds that climate change could be destabilizing the mutualistic relationships between insects and plants. The findings, appearing in the journal Ecology, ...

Mutually beneficial relationships are common, but what happens when one partner stops enforcing the other's good behavior? An exception to the usual relationship between figs and their ...

Reakirt's blue butterflies were moving among the flower heads of white clover in my lawn. I presumed that they were nectaring, but I watched closely and discovered that they were ovipositing. They ...

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 ...

Pseudomyrmex spinicola ants feeding on nectar produced from extrafloral nectaries, located at the base of the leaves of swollen-thorn acacias (Vachellia collinsii). In this obligate mutualistic ...