Acacia Ants Respond to Plant-Borne Vibrations Caused by Mammalian Browsers (Current Biology)

Hager and Krausa show that the acacia ant Crematogaster mimosae defends its host tree by exploiting plant-borne vibrations caused by browsers feeding on the tree. Browser-induced vibrations serve as a long-distance alarm cue, and the ants make use of tropotactic directional vibration sensing to orient to the attacked part of the tree.