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Survival strategies of rainforest ants The heavy rainfall in the humid tropics pose special challenges to plants and animals. Ants have developed a variety of adaptations to flooding. Measures against floods range from raft formation to various methods of nest drainage. In the intertidal zone nests are sealed watertight, while the ants react with physiological adaptations to the oxygen deficiency. In an obligate symbiosis between a carnivorous pitcher plant and a carpenter ant a unique coexistence has developed, in which the partner ant dives and forages unharmed in the digestive pitcher fluid for mosquito larvae and drowned prey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]