The occurrence and abundance of plants with extrafloral nectaries, the basis for antiherbivore defensive mutualisms, along a latitudinal gradient in east Asia

• Published in: Journal of Biogeography
• Main Author: Pemberton, Robert W.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1998
• Subjects: Tundra
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.1998.2540661.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1046%2Fj.1365-2699.1998.2540661.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1365-2699.1998.2540661.x

Abstract. The occurrence and abundance of indigenous plants with extrafloral nectaries was evaluated within local communities and regional floras along a north to south gradient from tundra in northeastern Russia (64–70°N) through temperate types in eastern Russia and Korea to subtropical vegetation in the Bonin Islands (26–27°N) south of Japan. Moving from tundra to subtropical vegetation, there is a pattern of increasing abundance of extrafloral bearing plants as a function of total plant cover (from 10.25 to 40.18%), number of species per sampled area (from 0.11 to 1.13/100 m), and proportion of species within regional floras (from 0.32 to 7.46%). There were some plants with extrafloral nectaries in all communities but their abundance varied greatly, c . 1–25% in the four northern latitudes and c . 7–70% in the subtropical region. Ants, the primary mutualists associated with plants bearing extrafloral nectaries, have a similar pattern of increasing abundance (species richness, nest density, and colony size) along the same north–south latitudinal gradient.