Acacia plant controls ants with chemical

This is an old topic, but it is really amazing!

In Africa and in the tropics, armies of tiny creatures make the twisting stems of acacia plants their homes.
Aggressive, stinging ants feed on the sugary nectar the plant provides and live in nests protected by its thick bark.
This is the world of "ant guards".
The acacias might appear overrun by them, but the plants have the ants wrapped around their little stems.
These same plants that provide shelter and produce nourishing nectar to feed the insects also make chemicals that send them into a defensive frenzy, forcing them into retreat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8383577.stm

Height matters more than size for dispersing seeds

Plant height rather than seed mass is a better predictor of how far seeds will be dispersed, a study has shown.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14076475

A rainforest vine has evolved dish-shaped leaves to attract the bats that pollinate it

Tests revealed that the leaves were supremely efficient at bouncing back the sound pulses the flying mammals used to navigate.

When the leaves were present the bats located the plant twice as quickly as when these echoing leaves were removed.

A team of scientists in the UK and Germany reported its findings in the journal Science.

The study is the first to find a plant with "specialised acoustic features" to help bat pollinators find them using sound.

Most bats send out pulses of sound to find their way around; the way they sense objects in their environment by sensing how these pulses bounce off them is known as echolocation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14328999