Despite their awesome ability to buckle down and take advantage of resources, aphids are almost defenseless and painfully slow-to-react, making them a favorite food of predators like ladybird beetles.
In order to defend themselves, aphids make themselves attractive to allies. They secrete honeydew, a sweet liquid that ants love to consume. The ants, fierce warriors, then protect the aphids from marauding predators, like shepherds protecting their flocks of sheep.
The akamegashiwa (Mallotus japonicus) is an extremely successful pioneering plant (it is often the first to start growing in an empty lot) with paradoxically almost no natural defenses (no spines, poisons or thick bark) -- a somewhat silly state of affairs if one is the only plant on a piece of ground.
The akamegashiwa succeeds in protecting itself in the same way aphids do: it excretes a very sweet liquid from a pair of red eye-shaped structures (akame) found at the base of every leaf. Ants consume the sweet liquid and, in return, protect the plant from insect browsers.
All metaphoric interpretations elucidating why I would post this information on a Japanese politics and society blog gratefully accepted.
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Base of an akamegashiwa leaf with ants feeding
Minato-ku, Tokyo Metropolitan District
June 25, 2008
Photo courtesy : MTC
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http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/kwaidan/kwai21.htm
As a public service, and perhaps to add a layer of irony, I have copied a definition of parthenogenisis (which I had to look up).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the religious belief, see Virgin birth of Jesus.
Parthenogenesis (from the Greek παρθένος parthenos, "virgin", + γένεσις genesis, "creation") is an asexual form of reproduction found in females where growth and development of embryos or seeds occurs without fertilization by males. The offspring produced by parthenogenesis almost always are female in species where the XY chromosome system determines gender.
Parthenogenesis occurs naturally in some species, including most lower plants, a Kalanchoe succulent plant genus of South Africa, invertebrates (e.g. water fleas, aphids, some bees, some scorpion species, and parasitic wasps), and vertebrates (e.g. some reptiles,[1] fish, and, very rarely, birds[2] and sharks[3]) and this type of reproduction has been induced artificially in other species.
The term is sometimes used inaccurately to describe reproduction modes in hermaphroditic species which can reproduce by themselves because they contain reproductive organs of both genders.
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