Devil's Garden Tree

In the Amazon, bizarre clearings exist where only one tree species grows - 'devil's gardens' that locals attributed to forest spirits. The real explanation is more remarkable: the tree hosts Myrmelachista ants that systematically poison all other plants, injecting formic acid into competitor stems. The ants create tree monocultures that can contain 300+ host trees and persist for 800+ years.

This is ant-mediated herbicide application. The ants don't eat competing plants - they kill them to create more territory for their host tree to spread. As the host clonally expands, ant colonies expand with it. The ants are farming trees, clearing land for their crop to grow. Plant monoculture maintained by insect agriculture.

The scale of devil's gardens reveals the power of the partnership. Single gardens cover up to 600 square meters. The ant colony treating all connected trees as a single territory can number in the hundreds of thousands. The ants' chemical warfare capability extends across the entire garden, maintaining competitive exclusion indefinitely.

The business insight is that aggressive partners can eliminate competition that you couldn't handle alone. The tree doesn't produce the formic acid - it outsources competitive destruction to partners who are better at it. Companies that form partnerships with aggressive complementors - distributors who exclusive-deal competitors, marketers who attack alternatives - can achieve market positions they couldn't create through their own capabilities.