DOI: 10.5061/dryad.6wwpzgn9f
title: Data from: Ants on flowers: Protective ants impose a low but variable cost to pollination, moderated by location of extrafloral nectaries and type of flower visitors

description: Throughout their lifetimes, individuals of most species engage in multiple
 mutualistic interactions simultaneously. These mutualisms can interfere
 with each other, leading to ecological costs that can influence the
 outcome of these interactions. Identifying factors that modulate these
 costs is pivotal to reaching a deeper understanding of the dynamics of
 mutualistic interactions. We investigated the ecological costs of
 protective ants on the pollination of plants with extrafloral nectaries
 (EFNs) and how plant traits and the type of pollinator can modulate them.
 We hypothesized that (1) ants negatively affect the patterns of flower
 visitation and plant reproductive performance and that (2) this effect is
 relatively higher for plants bearing EFNs close to inflorescences compared
 to those bearing EFNs only on vegetative tissues. Additionally, we
 hypothesized that (3) the effect of ants on flower visitation is
 contingent upon the type of flower visitor. To evaluate these hypotheses,
 we used a meta-analytical approach based on 27 studies that assessed the
 effects of ants on patterns of floral visitation and plant reproductive
 performance. We found that ants impose a low, yet highly variable, cost to
 pollination. Specifically, ants have a strong negative effect on patterns
 of flower visitation, especially when the visitors are bees, but this does
 not translate into reduced plant reproductive performance. The
 reproductive success of plants with EFNs close to vegetative tissue is
 enhanced by ant presence. Finally, the negative effect of ants on flower
 visitors is stronger when EFNs are closer to inflorescences. Synthesis:
 Our results indicate that, in general, ants have a low impact on the
 pollination of EFN-bearing plants. This pattern supports theoretical
 predictions that natural selection acts to lower the costs of protection
 mutualisms. Our macroscale evaluation further shows that plant traits such
 as EFN location, as well as the type of flower visitors, modulate this
 cost. The outcome of ant-pollinator interactions may affect the
 evolutionary trajectory of traits mediating defense and pollination in
 EFN-bearing plants.
description: Description of methods for data collection: we used keywords
 (desribed above) to find papers about the effect of ants on pollination on
 Web of Science and Scopus. Keywords used to search
 studies: (“(ant-plant OR myrmecoph*) AND (pollina* OR robbe* OR thie* OR
 larcen*)”. Based on this query, we used litsearchR R package to find more
 queries: (1) “(extrafloral nectar*) AND (pollina* OR robbe* OR thie* OR
 larcen*)”, (2) “(ant-pollinator conflict*) AND (pollina* OR robbe* OR
 thie* OR larcen*)”, and (3) “(ant-plant mutualis* OR ant-plant interact*)
 AND (pollina* OR robbe* OR thie* OR larcen*)”. Articles
 included in the meta-analysis: 28 Description of
 methods used for data processing: our searches resulted in approximately
 1200 papers. We used litsearchR v. 0.4.1 to remove duplicates (N = 635)
 and we removed manually more 32 duplicated not detected by litsearchR. To
 be included in the meta-analysis, the paper must satisfy six eligibility
 criteria: (1) have treatments with and without ants, (2) there must be a
 spatial and temporal overlap between ant and flower visitors foraging, (3)
 experimental or observational study (no theoretical modelling), (4) if the
 paper evaluated density or abundance of ants, it must report the effect of
 ant regardless of density or abundance, (5) have no insects secreting
 honeydew in addition to extrafloral nectaries, (6) plants should bear only
 extrafloral nectaries as a source of attraction for ants (no
 housing).
description: # Data from: Ants on flowers: Protective ants impose a low but variable
 cost to pollination, moderated by location of extrafloral nectaries and
 type of flower visitors Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.6wwpzgn9f](10.5061/dryad.6wwpzgn9f) ## Description of the
 data and file structure DATA AND FILE OVERVIEW **meta.csv**
 **Description** * Sheet1 (data): data used to run all analyses Date that
 the file was created: 2021 Date(s) that the file(s) were updated
 (versioned) and the nature of the update(s): September 2022 (update search
 and inclusion of three studies) **map.csv** **Description** * Sheet1
 (data): data used to run the map Date that the file was created: 2021
 Date(s) that the file(s) were updated (versioned) and the nature of the
 update(s): September 2022 (update search and inclusion of three studies)
 ### Files and variables **meta.csv** Count of the number of variables, and
 the number of cases or rows Number of variables: 21 Number of
 observations: 140 Variable list, including full names and definitions
 (spell out abbreviated words) of column headings for tabular data \* ID:
 Unique identification for each study \* author: Authors of the original
 study \* year: Year when the study was published \* title: Title of the
 study \* journal: Journal in which the study was published \* volume:
 Volume in which the study was published \* page: Pages of the journal \*
 plant_sp: Plant species used in the study \* plant_genus: Plant genera
 used in the study \* plant_fam: Plant family used in the study \*
 ant_presence: If the authors applied tanglefoot or if ants were naturally
 absent (tanglefoot or naturally_absent) \* EFN_position: Exact location of
 the EFNs within plants \* resource_location: Categorical description of
 EFN location within plants( reproductive or non-reproductive) \*
 functional_group: Functional group of flower visitors (bee, lepidoptera,
 diptera, wasp, or NA) \* measure_study: The metric used as described in
 the study \* measure_type: Categorical description of the measure used in
 the study (plant fitness or visitation) \* mean_with_ants: Mean value from
 the treatment with ants \* mean_without_ants: Mean value from the
 treatment without ants \* sd_with_ants: Standard deviation value from the
 treatment with ants \* sd_without_ants: Standard deviation value from the
 treatment without ants \* n_with_ants: Sample size from the treatment with
 ants \* n_without_ants: Sample size from the treatment without ants \*
 source: In which part of the study were the effects reported \* yi:
 Hedge's g effect size \* vi: Variation of the Hedge's g effect
 size Definitions for codes used to record missing data: NA **map.csv**
 Count of the number of variables, and the number of cases or rows Number
 of variables: 3 Number of observations: 31 Variable list, including full
 names and definitions (spell out abbreviated words) of column headings for
 tabular data \* ID: Unique identification for each study \* latitude:
 Latitude of the place where the study was conducted \* longitude:
 Longitude of the place where the study was conducted Definitions for codes
 used to record missing data: NA **R SCRIPTS** * 1effectsizes.R: calculate
 Hedges' g effect size used in the meta-analysis - 2descriptive.R:
 calculate all descriptive data presented in the results section, such as
 the number of studies included in each analysis * 2map.R: map including
 all locations where original studies were conducted - 4AntPolConflict.R:
 meta-analysis * 5Sup_analysis.R: meta-analysis including outlier - 6
 heterogeneity.R: calculate heterogeneity (I2) * 7bias.R: calculate
 temporal and publication biases - 8sensitivity.R: Sensitivity analysis -
 trait_tree.R: This R script analyzes the effect of ants on their attended
 plants using a phylogenetic approach, visualizing species traits
 (specifically extrafloral nectary location) on a computed ultrametric tree
 derived from plant species data. ## Code/software R software v. 4.0.5
 Packages: * litsearchR v. 0.4.1 * phylomaker 2 v. 0.1.0 * ape v. 5.6.2 *
 metafor v. 2.4.0 ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations
 of the data: *
 [https://github.com/mandyviesi/Antsonflowers](https://github.com/mandyviesi/Antsonflowers) Data was derived from the following sources: * This study is a meta-analysis based on the data of 27 studies.