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Barteria Fistulosa
''Barteria fistulosa'' is a species of tree in the family Passifloraceae, native to tropical Central Africa. The tree has an association with an aggressive species of ant with a very painful sting, which lives in its hollow branches and twigs, and gives rise to its common name of "ant tree". Description ''Barteria fistulosa'' is a small evergreen tree growing to a height of about . It has a deep taproot, multiple trunks and spreading horizontal branches which are hollow. The leaves alternate are simple, slightly overlapping and borne on short flattened stalks. The leaf blades are glossy green, oblong, and widest just beyond the mid-point, and have entire margins and a slight notch at the apex. The tiny, regular, white flowers form an arc of five flowers around the leaf bases and are followed by small globular fruits. Distribution and habitat ''Barteria fistulosa'' can be found in tropical Central Africa, its range extending from Nigeria to the Democratic Republic of Congo. It gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maxwell Tylden Masters
Maxwell Tylden Masters FRS (15 April 1833 – 30 May 1907) was an English botanist and taxonomist. He was the son of William Masters, the nurseryman and botanist of Canterbury and author of ''Hortus duroverni''.Desmond, R. (1994). ''Dictionary of British & Irish Botanists & Horticulturists'', p.475. Taylor & Francis, and Natural History Museum, London. Life Tylden Masters studied at the King's College London and the University of St Andrews. He attended the lectures of Edward Forbes and John Lindley. His most famous works are ''Vegetable Teratology'', which dealt with teratology (abnormal mutations) of vegetable species, and several works on Chinese plants (particularly conifers), describing many of the new species discovered by Ernest Henry Wilson. The larch ''Larix mastersiana'' and the ''Nepenthes'' hybrid '' N. × mastersiana'' are named after Tylden Masters, among other plant species. Including a genus that was published in 1871, '' Maxwellia'' from New Caledonia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. However, only about 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a two-part name, a "binomial". The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet (in botanical nomenclature, also sometimes i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passifloraceae
The Passifloraceae are a family of flowering plants, containing about 750 species classified in around 27 genera. They include trees, shrubs, lianas, and climbing plants, and are mostly found in tropical regions. The family takes its name from the passion flower genus (''Passiflora'') which includes the edible passion fruit (''Passiflora edulis''), as well as garden plants such as maypop and running pop. ''Passiflora'' vines and ''Dryas iulia'' (among other heliconian butterflies) have demonstrated evidence of coevolution, in which the plants attempted to stop their destruction from larval feeding by the butterflies, while the butterflies tried to gain better survival for their eggs. The former Cronquist system of classification placed this family in the order Violales, but under more modern classifications systems such as that proposed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, this is absorbed into the Malpighiales and the family has been expanded to include the former Malesherbiac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terra Firma Forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as, "Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds ''in situ''. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use." Using this definition, '' Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020'' (FRA 2020) found that forests covered , or approximately 31 percent of the world's land area in 2020. Forests are the predominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are found around the globe. More than half of the world's forests are found in only five countries (Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, and the United States). The largest share of forests (45 percent) are in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Understory
In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but above the forest floor. Only a small percentage of light penetrates the canopy so understory vegetation is generally shade-tolerant. The understory typically consists of trees stunted through lack of light, other small trees with low light requirements, saplings, shrubs, vines and undergrowth. Small trees such as holly and dogwood are understory specialists. In temperate deciduous forests, many understory plants start into growth earlier in the year than the canopy trees, to make use of the greater availability of light at that particular time of year. A gap in the canopy caused by the death of a tree stimulates the potential emergent trees into competitive growth as they grow upwards to fill the gap. These trees tend to have straight trunks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetraponera Aethiops CASENT0217585 Head
''Tetraponera'' is a genus of ants in the subfamily Pseudomyrmecinae that are commonly known as slender ants and are characterized by their arboreal nature and slender bodies. The 96 described species of ''Tetraponera'' all of which live in hollow structures of plants and trees, such as thorns or branches; these hosts are known as myrmecophytes. ''Tetraponera'' species are closely related to the New World genus of ants ''Pseudomyrmex'', but differ in their relationships with host plants. Mutualisms and behaviour ''Tetraponera'' species are generally defined by the myrmecophytes they inhabit and the mutualistic relationship they share. These host plants always have hollow thorns or branches in which the ants can live and form a colony. Also, the myrmecophytes provide energy rich food sources such as extrafloral nectar and/or food bodies. All ''Tetraponera'' species have gut symbionts that allow them to digest amino acid-deficient food provided by their host plants; these gut b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetraponera Aethiops
''Tetraponera aethiops'' is a species of ant in the subfamily Pseudomyrmecinae, which is native to tropical Africa. It is found living in the tropical forest, forest in association with ''Barteria fistulosa'', a small tree. Distribution and habitat This ant is always found living in association with the tree ''Barteria fistulosa'', so the ant is only found where the tree grows in Central Africa. Its range extends from Nigeria, through Cameroon and the Central African Republic to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The tree grows in moist mixed Forest#Tropical moist, terra firma forest where it forms part of the understory. Ecology After her nuptial flight, a queen ''Tetraponera aethiops'' searches for a ''Barteria fistulosa'' tree. The branches are hollow and she chooses a shoot some long and chews a hole through which she enters the cavity, known as a domitia. This links up to other parts of the tree and already contains the resources she needs, scale insects and fungus, on whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domatium
A domatium (plural: domatia, from the Latin "domus", meaning home) is a tiny chamber that houses arthropods, produced by a plant. Ideally domatia differ from galls in that they are produced by the plant rather than being induced by their inhabitants, but the distinction is not sharp; the development of many types of domatia is influenced and promoted by the inhabitants. Most domatia are inhabited either by mites or ants, in what can be a mutualist relationship, but other arthropods such as thrips may take parasitic advantage of the protection offered by this structure. Domatia occupied by ants are called myrmecodomatia. An important class of myrmecodomatia comprise large, hollow spines of certain acacias such as '' Acacia sphaerocephala'', in which ants of the genera ''Pseudomyrmex'' and ''Tetraponera'' make their nests. Plants that provide myrmecodomatia are called myrmecophytes. The variety of the plants that provide myrmecodomatia, and the ranges of forms of such domatia are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbivore
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthparts adapted to rasping or grinding. Horses and other herbivores have wide flat teeth that are adapted to grinding grass, tree bark, and other tough plant material. A large percentage of herbivores have mutualistic gut flora that help them digest plant matter, which is more difficult to digest than animal prey. This flora is made up of cellulose-digesting protozoans or bacteria. Etymology Herbivore is the anglicized form of a modern Latin coinage, ''herbivora'', cited in Charles Lyell's 1830 ''Principles of Geology''.J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, eds. (2000) ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. 8, p. 155. Richard Owen employed the anglicized term in an 1854 work on fossil teeth and skeletons. ''Herbivora'' is derived from Latin ''herba' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extra-floral Nectary
Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists, which in turn provide herbivore protection. Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, honeyeaters and bats. Nectar plays a crucial role in the foraging economics and evolution of nectar-eating species; for example, nectar foraging behavior is largely responsible for the divergent evolution of the African honey bee, ''A. m. scutellata'' and the western honey bee. Nectar is an economically important substance as it is the sugar source for honey. It is also useful in agriculture and horticulture because the adult stages of some predatory insects feed on nectar. For example, a number of parasitoid wasps (e.g. the social wasp species ''Apoica flavissima'') rely on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honeydew (secretion)
Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids and some scale insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the aphid. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteran insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis. Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew. Honeydew producing insects, like cicadas, pierce phloem ducts to access the sugar rich sap. The sap continues to bleed after the insects have moved on, leaving a white sugar crust called manna. Ants may collect, or "milk", honeydew directly from aphids and other honeydew producers, which benefit from their presence due to their driving away predators such as lady beetles or parasitic wasps—see ''Crematogaster peringueyi''. Animals and plants in a mutually symbiotic arrangement with ants are called Myrmecophiles. In Madagascar, some gecko species in the genera ''Ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scale Insect
Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than the superfamily Coccoidea due to taxonomic uncertainties. Adult females typically have soft bodies and no limbs, and are concealed underneath domed scales, extruding quantities of wax for protection. Some species are hermaphroditic, with a combined ovotestis instead of separate ovaries and testes. Males, in the species where they occur, have legs and sometimes wings, and resemble small flies. Scale insects are herbivores, piercing plant tissues with their mouthparts and remaining in one place, feeding on sap. The excess fluid they imbibe is secreted as honeydew on which sooty mold tends to grow. The insects often have a mutualistic relationship with ants, which feed on the honeydew and protect them from predators. There are about 8,000 descr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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