Ants are known to benefit plants by providing nutrients to plants, pollination services and seed dispersal, as well as defending plants against herbivory. But do ants just drive away herbivores, or do they deter everything? And if they do, how does that affect plants that rely on pollinators other than ants? Two recent studies have been looking at the same problem from two different directions.
How plants know when they are too close to each other
Sorghum plants can sense nearby plants through chemicals in the soil water, and this makes them slow their growth, which helps explain why planting crops close together doesn’t always increase yields.
