Plant and Ant Reproduction
September 18th, 2009 Posted in Ants & Roaches
Ants act in a way that benefits the group as opposed to the individual, which is one of the many reasons why ants thrive in the trillions today. Apparently, their sex lives are less than pleasurable for all parties involved. The civilized ant has sex, but not in the way humans think about it. Most males live short lives and may only get to personally fertilize the queen once.
The queen, once fertilized, quickly turns into a baby booming apparatus birthing at a non-stop rate–how romantic. Ants seem to lack the passion and get right to business.
For instance, black ants mate in the air in mass numbers to help protect themselves from predators. Once they mate, the male dies, and sometimes the females does too, falling from the skies down to the ground.
(I’m not sure if it could get more dramatic than recently-sexed corpses falling from the skies, but then again, ants can accomplish big things. You know, like lifting 20 to 50 times their body size.)
Many females do survive though; no longer as winged ants, but as queens ready to get to it. With no wings they bury themselves into the ground starting new colonies and creating baby after baby.
(So most likely, ants aren’t singing ‘let’s get it on,’ by Marvin Gaye, but are saying ‘lets get to work.’)
The ants’ brief marriage is one of nature’s wonders and mysteries.
Reproducing male and female ants leave different colonies on the same days to mate, because they don’t typically inbreed.
When it comes to mating and reproducing they do what they need to do. The Cordia nodosa plant from South America is one such example that benefits from a mutual relationship with ants; the ants provide protection for the plants from herbivores, while they house their colonies inside the plants. Scientists have discovered many of these ant colonies are eating the insides of the plants hampering the plants’ sex lives. While negatively affecting the plants, the ants provide more room for their colonies, which in turn leaves more room for baby rearing queens and their kin.
So while ants produce like bunny rabbits, they hinder production of the plants. Not so fair, is it?
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