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.