Measuring ant-aphid mutualism with human disturbances.

Abstract

Ants and aphids have long been known to display a mutualistic relationship. However, not as much is known about how ant behavior changes with habituation of the ants to disturbances. We wanted to know if ants are used to being disturbed, how would they react differently to the predator or a disturbance, if at all. To test this we used the UV field at UMBS that has a plethora of milkweed, ants, and aphids. Our disturbed area was the first ten meters on the side of a road and the undisturbed area was the 10 meters following. We watched for five behaviors in the ants while acting as a pseudo-predator for three minutes and tallied these behaviors. We found that ants are more likely to ignore the predator the closer to the disturbed area that the ants are located. However, the ant-aphid mutualistic relationship has a broader applicability when considering monarch butterflies. Although ants protect the aphids, they also protect the plant. With the Midwest providing a home for so mnay monarchs, adding ants and aphids to milkweed plants across the Midwest could also protect the monarch and help restore their numbers to historic levels.