Ancho (width) chile peppers have economic, social, culinary and cultural importance in Mexico and worldwide. This chile type considers divergent subtypes that altogether have not been analysed and therefore their morphological diversity has not been systematically described. The objectives were to describe the morphological diversity of ancho pepper landraces from Mexico, to identify groups of similarity and to define the traits with the higher contribution to the total variation. Eighty-six landraces of ancho chile peppers (red, ‘mulatos’, ‘miahuatecos’, ‘cristalinos’ and ‘huacle’), collected in six states of Mexico, and two commercial controls were evaluated in two localities, in a simple randomized complete block experimental design. We recorded 76 morphological traits. Statistical analysis included a combined ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, discriminant analysis, principal components and clusters. The morphological diversity in ancho chile peppers was mainly made up of fruit width, fruit wall thickness, stem diameter, corolla length, seed weight per fruit, plant height, stem length and pubescence. We defined four groups, which made it possible to differentiate ancho chile peppers of Puebla and the huacle chile pepper of Oaxaca from populations collected in the north and ‘Bajío’ (midland) parts of Mexico. Ancho chile peppers of Mexico showed wide morphological differences according to the type of chile pepper and seed collection regions. The traits that contributed the greatest morphological diversity were fruit width, fruit wall thickness, stem diameter, corolla length, seed weight per fruit, plant height, stem length and pubescence.

Interactions between ants and non-myrmecochorous diaspores occur frequently on the forest floor and the results of these interactions (e.g. diaspore cleaning or removal) will often depend on the morpho-chemical characteristics of the diaspores. We conducted two different experiments with seven plant species in the north-eastern Atlantic forest, Brazil. To evaluate whether ant interactions decrease diaspore persistence time on the forest floor, we established sample stations by placing five diaspores of each species spaced every 10 m along a transect and monitored ant interactions over a 24-h period. We also compared diaspore removal by ants and vertebrates through a paired experiment. We monitored removal of the seven plant species in treatments where ants were excluded and treatments where vertebrates were excluded. We recorded 332 ant–diaspore interactions, most resulting in ants cleaning diaspores in situ. Persistence of diaspores on the forest floor varied greatly among studied species and was less than 50% for three species. Ants also removed more diaspores than did vertebrates. Number of diaspores removed by ants was greater for small diaspores and with high lipid concentration. Ant–diaspore interactions may not always exert a positive influence on plant recruitment for diaspores with poor nutrient concentration. Consequently, ants may play a disproportionately important role as secondary dispersers in tropical forests.