Who do you think were the first farmers ever? First thought would be hard-working humans, right? You would be surprised to know that ants, not humans, were the first organisms to farm!
Researchers at the University of Munich, Germany, observed that Fijian ants had already farmed their own crops long before humans.
These ants have been farming for three million years - the history of farming for humankind only started 12,000 years ago!
What’s more, these ants have been discovered to be mutually dependent on the fruit plant they farm, meaning that both species rely on each other to successfully live in their habitats.
How Do These Ants Do It?
Fijian ants, like other species of ants, have formed networks where they communicate and work as a team to produce food for the colony.
However, the mutual bond between the Fijian ants and the Fijian fruit plant is what makes this animal-plant relationship unique – the ants rely on the fruit for food and the plant relies on the ants to spread its seeds; one species can't live without the other.
These ants farm food by placing the seeds of the fruit plant into the bark of a tree. They chase off possible herbivores and fertilize the seed with feces.
As the seedling grows, it forms large hollow structures (known as Domatia) at its roots where ants make their home. They eat the fruits from the growing plant and gather the seeds for future plantings. Then, the process begins all over again. Pretty neat, right?
Mutually Beneficial Relationship
Such mutually beneficial relationships in the plant and animal world are known as symbiotic relationships.
A familiar example -- bees need nectar from flowers to make honey; in turn, pollen from flowers stick to their hairy bodies. As bees buzz from flower to flower, they deposit the pollen helping flowers fertilize. Similarly, our bodies are home to more than 100 trillion bacteria!
Ants and humans are not the only species that farm crops. There are many other species known to farm their own food. Damselfish harvest their own food by growing algae inside their territories; they clear out whatever is not algae out of their territories.
In the deep ocean, yeti crabs wave their arms to mix up water to make sure that the bacteria it eats gets the nutrients needed to grow. Termites build tall dirt mounds with tunnels to ventilate air for their fungi to grow.
And that’s just to name a few of the many creative ways animals raise their food as humans do. The video shows an example of a symbiotic relationship between an Acacia Tree and the Acacia Ant.
