Orchids.it

With this article starts the coooperation of this blog with Marcus Vinicius Locatelli, 24 years old, agronomist engineer trained at the Federal University of Viçosa, 2006. Currently Masters course in the department of soils and plant nutrition in the same institution. Its line of research is fertility of the soil and fertilization of cultures, specifically, working with modeling. I develop, concomitantly, some work with orchids.
As orchid enthusiast he has open the blog blog Orquidofilia e Orquidologia full of interesting ideas and arguments.
This is its latest work:
foto Marcus V. Locatelli

Not rare find in the woods bush of orchids and other plants as Bromeliaceas full of ants.

There are a number of known ecological relationships between ants and plants, far beyond the herbivory linked to the leaf cutting ants.

For example, mutualism, or protocooperation which is characterized by both species, plant and insect, obtain benefits from the association.

foto Marcus V. Locatelli

The plants are far from being passive in the surrounding environment, their bodies are biochemically communicate among themselves, inducing a morpho-physiological responses to their survival.

Among the morphological include the production of cuticle thicker, as physical barriers against the attacks of pests, as well as structures in their bodies that serve as shelter for the predators of their pests, for example, plants myrmecophyte, special example in our case, the orchid from Central America Myrmecophila tibicinis aka Schomburgkia tibicinis (Bateman ex Lindl.) Rolfe, Orchid Rev. 25: 51 (1917), also here, with holes and cameras on the grounds of their pseudobulbs, serving as a shelter for Formicidaes.
foto Marcus V. Locatelli

And physiologically, summarising a range enormous, and little understood, secondary metabolites, such as phenols, which make them very indigestible to their enemies. There is still the semiochemicals used in the communication between the bodies of the same species, the pheromones, and between different species, allelochemicals, illustrating the latter, as the plants under attack from his enemies say the natural enemies of the same: “come here have food for you,” through volatile substances released into the environment, which serve as a “guide” for them until they arrive, substances which are also called infochemicals, which would be of great importance for those species hunt of insects, nomads and solitary.

In the case of predatory species of ants, and the vast majority life colonies there is a need for colonies being built in protected places, such as interspersed pseudobulbs to the roots of orchids and epiphytes, recalling also that many of these are endemic to top of trees, or live exclusively on the crown of the trees, there foddering prey, which usually prey habits of herbivores attracted by plants adjacent.

And the trend follows, victims and aggressors seeking deceive each other.

But the “joke” is not going to do it, recently in the Journal of Soil Science Brazilian, left this note saying that “… irrespective of the substrate cut, the waste produced shows higher concentrations of nutrients than the leaves, and important locus of recycling of nutrients in the ecosystem. The waste can be one of the main reasons for the increase in the concentration of nutrients in the soil tingling. ” So would extrapolate too think that while tingling associated with bushes of orchids are of predatory species, not as leaf cutting ants of this work, they also contribute accumulating nutrients in the fertile orchids epiphytes gradually?

The orchids illustrated in this post are the kind Microlaelia lundii (Rchb.f. & Warm.) Chiron & VP Castro, Richardiana 2: 11 (2002), photographed in the habitat in the West Paulista in August 2007.

Below, a bush very influenced by insects and spiders.
foto Marcus V. Locatelli

The yet to consider that the presence of ants in touceiras sometimes the preserve to be collected by people, in the case of this habitat, with many other Microlaelia lundii in place, the more difficult it is collected will be spared while others were more susceptible.