ORIGINAL PAPER Vascular epiphytes and host trees of ant-gardens in an anthropic landscape in southeastern Mexico Jonas Morales-Linares 1 & José G. García-Franco 1 & Alejandro Flores-Palacios 2 & Jorge E. Valenzuela-González 1 & Martín Mata-Rosas 3 & Cecilia Díaz-Castelazo 4 Received: 14 July 2016 /Revised: 9 November 2016 /Accepted: 11 November 2016 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016 Abstract Ant-gardens (AGs) are considered one of the most complex mutualist systems between ants and plants, since interactions involving dispersal, protection, and nutrition oc- cur simultaneously in them; however, little is known about the effects of the transformation of ecosystems on their diversity and interactions. In five environments with different land use within an anthropic landscape in southeastern Mexico, we investigated the diversity and composition of epiphytes and host trees of AGs built by Azteca gnava. A total of 10,871 individuals of 26 epiphytic species, associating with 859 AGs located in 161 host trees, were recorded. The diversity and composition of epiphytes tended to be different between en- vironments; however, Aechmea tillandsioides and Codonanthe uleana were the most important species and con- sidered true AG epiphytes, because they were the most frequent, abundant, and occurred exclusively in AGs. Other important species were the orchids Epidendrum flexuosum, Coryanthes picturata, and Epidendrum pachyrachis, and should also be considered true AG epiphytes, because they occurred almost exclusively in the AGs. The AG abundance in agroforestry plantations was similar or even greater than in riparian vegetation (natural habitat). The AGs were registered in 37 host species but were more frequent in Mangifera indica and Citrus sinensis. We conclude that true epiphytes of A. gnava AGs persist in different environments and host trees, and even these AGs could proliferate in agroforestry planta- tions of anthropic landscapes. Keywords Agroforestry plantations . Chiapas, diversity . Riparian vegetation . Species composition . Tabasco Introduction The interactions between plants and animals have been a key driver in the origin, stability, and evolution of species diversity on Earth (Bascompte and Jordanian 2007; Mougi and Kondoh 2012). In tropical forests, the diversity in the canopy is char- acterized by the richness and abundance of vascular epiphytes and the abundance of arboreal ants (e.g., Kreft et al. 2004; Krömer et al. 2005; Dejean et al. 2007; Floren et al. 2014), which has contributed to the maintenance of mutualistic inter- actions between epiphytes and ants (Rico-Gray and Oliveira 2007). The obligate mutualisms between epiphytes and ants occur in myrmecophytic plants, i.e., plants provide nesting sites in their tissues (domatia) for ants, and in ant-gardens (AGs), i.e., arboreal ants disperse, protect, and nourish epi- phytes in their nests, while epiphytes provide mechanical sup- port to the nests through their roots, and also could supply nectar to ants (Orivel and Leroy 2011; Mayer et al. 2014). Communicated by: Alain Dejean Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00114-016-1421-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Jonas Morales-Linares jonasml1@gmail.com 1 Red de Ecología Funcional, Instituto de Ecología, A.C., Antigua Carretera a Coatepec No. 351, El Haya, 91070 Xalapa, VER, Mexico 2 Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Conservación, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Av. Universidad 1001, Col. Chamilpa, 62209 Cuernavaca, MOR, Mexico 3 Red Manejo Biotecnológico de Recursos, Instituto de Ecología, A.C., Antigua Carretera a Coatepec No. 351, El Haya, 91070 Xalapa, VER, Mexico 4 Red de Interacciones Multifróficas, Instituto de Ecología, A.C., Antigua Carretera a Coatepec No. 351, El Haya, 91070 Xalapa, VER, Mexico Sci Nat (2016) 103:96 DOI 10.1007/s00114-016-1421-9