(a) Deforestation is an example for human activities in the Amazon Forest. When building homes, factories etc. land is reclaimed and forests are normally burned down. Between May 2000 and August 2006, over 600,000 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest has been destroyed. Brazilian deforestation is strongly associated to the economic health of the country.
A relatively small percentage of large landowners clear vast sections of the Amazon for cattle pastureland. Large areas of forest are cleared and sometimes planted with African savanna grasses for cattle feeding. In many cases, especially during periods of high inflation, land is simply cleared for investment purposes. When pastureland prices exceed forest land prices, forest clearing is a good hedge against inflation.
Such favorable taxation policies, combined with government subsidized agriculture and colonization programs, encourage the destruction of the Amazon. The practice of low taxes on income derived from agriculture and tax rates that favor pasture over forest overvalues agriculture and pastureland and makes it profitable to convert natural forest for these purposes when it normally would not be so.
Up until at least the mid-1990s this system was worsened by the government policy that allowed each claimant to gain title for an amount of land up to three times the amount of forest cleared. A significant amount of deforestation is caused by the subsistence activities of poor farmers who are encouraged to settle on forest lands by government land policies. Poor farmers use fire for clearing land and every year satellite images pick up tens of thousands of fires burning across the Amazon, which burns the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants to death immediately.
Logging in the Amazon is closely linked with road building. Studies by the Environmental Defense Fund show that areas that have been selectively logged are eight times more likely to be settled and cleared by shifting cultivators than untouched rainforests because of access granted to logging roads. Logging roads give colonists access to rainforest, which they exploit for fuelwood, game, building material, and temporary agricultural lands, further destroying the habitat of the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants.
Furthermore, hydroelectric projects have flooded vast areas of Amazon rainforest. The Balbina dam flooded some 2,400 square kilometers (920 square miles) of rainforest when it was completed. This would drown the Allomeerus decemarticulatus ants.
Therefore, this displaces animals, including the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants. Furthermore, as their food source largely depends on making traps using plants to capture insects, deforestation would also mean the loss of traps; hence the ability to capture its prey also decreases tremendously. This will result in the lack of food source for the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants and cause a decrease in its population eventually. Therefore, with no food, the population figures will drop.
(b) The plant is protected by the ants, since the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants capture the insects which might to eat the plant. The plant provides shelter and a platform for the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants to catch prey. Both party benefits. – Mutualism. ***
Mould would benefit since the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants would provide protection for it and sustain it (place to grow) whereas the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants would also benefit since it could catch its prey effectively – thus, since both parties benefit, this proves to be mutualism instead of commensalism or parasitism. – Mutualism.
Mould grows around structure of the plant, but does not affect it. However, the mould in turn finds a place to inhabit. – Commensalism.
When an insect passes overhead, the ants reach up and grab its free legs, wings and antennae, stretching it against the gallery… Swarms of workers then rush over the hapless prey, stinging it into submission. – Exploitative relationship: Predation.
The host farm provides protein, and it has to be shared between the Allomerus decemarticulatus ants and the mould. – Competition.
*** Though not exactly the same, this is similar to the red weevil ants and the macaranga plants or the senduduk plants in Singapore. The macaranga and senduduk plants provide nutrients for ants, and the ants in turn defend the tree from other harmful organisms. While it seems that it is only ants that protect plants from damage, some plants also protect ants. In Singapore, there are palms filled with thorns, and black-coloured ants inhabit it. Thorns in palms would protect ants from predators since predators could not get close to the ants, whereas the ants would too provide protection from palms, since it defend the palms from organisms such as parasites.
References:
http://peeepl.com/gate/index.html?people_id=73801305&to=http%253A%252F%252F2a2science.blogspot.com%252F2011%252F05%252Fhbl-benedict-chin-2a206.html
http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html
http://2a2science.blogspot.com/
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