Abstract
In contrast to many myrmecophytes, which shelter ants in hollowed structures called domatia, plants bearing extrafloral nectaries do not have specific relationships with certain ant species. However, we hypothesized that different plants might be associated with different assemblages of ants. We studied three pioneer plant species from French Guiana: Passiflora glandulosa, Passiflora coccinea (Passifloraceae) and Mimosa myriadena (Mimosaceae) that occur together in the same habitat. The guild of ants associated with each of these plants was different from the overall ant community in the study area. Ant assemblages varied among plant species and, for a given plant species, from day to night. Certain ant species frequent in the study area were rare or even absent on these plants, even species known to be very aggressive at the interspecific level, such as Wasmannia auropunctata. While territoriality between ant species probably plays some role in determining distributions across plants, differential plant attractiveness to the workers also seems to be an important factor. Our large sample size, plus the fact that these plants develop in patches in which stems are frequently in contact, suggested that a certain selectivity occurs for plant choice by ant workers.