Ants control the Amazon forest

Researchers have found a solution to the phenomenon of "evil gardens" in the Amazon jungle year-round with only one tree species. It is the ants that live on parasites that kill all other plants except the host.

The "evil" ant species dominates the trees in the Amazon jungle

Peruvian locals call it "evil gardens " because it only exists as a species of Duroia hirsuta . It is a special phenomenon in the Amazon forest which is very diverse, making local people think of some supernatural force. But the researchers found that it was ants , not demons, that caused this situation.

Myrmelachista schumanni ants live in tree niches to avoid enemies and weather changes. They kill all plants, except their host, by injecting ficic acid into the leaves. That way, they help their host spread. Such gardens have more than 300 trees of hundreds of years old and millions of ants.

"It is amazing that ants can control their habitat. They create a single-species territory in a place that is said to be the richest global diversity , " Deborah Gordon at Stanford University. , USA, said.

Some previous studies have suggested that ants or the trees themselves killed the surrounding plants, but no one could explain why. Now Megan Frederickson and colleagues at Stanford University have discovered that ants do that by injecting a natural poison.

Researchers planted common cedar trees in the Amazon into the woods of ants. When they remove all the ants, this plant grows. But when the ant colonies approached, cedar trees shed their leaves after about 5 days.

It is possible that ants bite a hole in the leaf and leave fomic acid drops from their abdomen. The vascular system in the plant takes acid everywhere. And after only a few hours of attack, dark areas appeared on the veins.

Formic acid is very common in ants: About a quarter of the 15,000 produce it. Many ants use formic acid to defend themselves. But this is the first time to use it as a herbicide.