Red imported fire ants, Solenopsis invicta (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are voracious predators that frequently consume large numbers of pest insects in southeastern agroecosystems. Red imported fire ants, however, may provide protection for honeydew producing homopterans and indirectly increase densities of these herbivores. In a series of greenhouse and field experiments, we tested the hypothesis that red imported fire ants tend cotton aphids, Aphis gossypii (Homoptera: Aphididae) and that ant protection increases the abundance of this pest. We found strong evidence that red imported fire ants protect cotton aphids from generalist predators: aphid survival was significantly higher when exposed to ladybird beetles or green lacewing larvae in the presence of fire ants than in the absence of fire ants and aphids were three to four times more abundant in cotton plots with high densities of fire ants than in cotton plots with suppressed densities of fire ants.
Species 1: Homoptera Aphididae Aphis gossypii (cotton aphid)
Species 2: Hymenoptera Formicidae Solenopsis invicta (red imported fire ant)
Keywords: intraguild predation, ant mutualism
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