Category: Uncategorized

MUTUALISM OF ANTS AND APHIDS. "Social insects defend their own colonies and some species also protect their mutualist partners. In mutualisms with aphids, ants typically feed on honeydew produced by aphids and, in turn guard and shelter aphid colonies from insect natural enemies." https://lnkd.in/e6r3DvK View in LinkedIn

SHEEP'S CLOTHING. "Our results show that chemical mimicry is used by flat morph aphids to deceive worker ants and infiltrate their brood chamber." This involved evolving a bio synthetic process to make the ant coat protein, or a wolf in a sheep's clothing strategy. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1101.full View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE deals with ant aphid farming. Ant societies are highly organized and have evolved many stunning food strategies, from cultivating fungal gardens to rearing aphids. This is a case study of mutualism between the ant and the aphid, where both parties gain from the relationship, although the relationship is more in favour of the ant. Enjoy the story that took millions of years to brew. View in LinkedIn

SNIFF TEST. "The main avenue of ant communication is chemical, and cuticular hydrocarbons have been shown to be particularly important in mediating nest-mate recognition. Several social parasites have developed the capacity to exploit this circumstance, penetrating ant societies by displaying chemicals that mimic those of their hosts. This strategy can be accomplished either by acquiring the host cuticular compounds through direct body contact (chemical camouflage) or by synthesizing them (chemical mimicry)." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1101.full View in LinkedIn

NON-CODING GENES AND VIRAL REMNANTS. “The TEs comprise at least half of the mammalian genomes, and in particular, are found in most lincRNAs.” (TE = transposable elements); (lincRNA = Long intergenic non-coding RNA). View in LinkedIn

INCOGNITO. "These results not only add aphids to the limited list of arthropods known to biosynthesize the cuticular chemicals of their deceived hosts to exploit their resources but describe a remarkable case of plastic aggressive mimicry." https://lnkd.in/d9truvs View in LinkedIn

NEW VIEW OF GENOMES. “Traditionally, genomes have been perceived mostly as repositories of protein-coding genes. Although this might be largely true in the case of viruses, prokaryotes, and unicellular eukaryotes, numerous recent studies on the genomes of multicellular eukaryotes, particularly animals, have revealed a vast non-coding RNome, i.e., numerous genes encoding various classes of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs).” https://lnkd.in/dwuaM5f View in LinkedIn

APHID BETRAYAL. "We report an unprecedented aphid–ant interaction in which one of the two clonally produced root-dwelling morphs of the aphid Paracletus cimiciformis imitates the cuticular hydrocarbons of Tetramorium ant larvae, inducing ants to transport the aphids to their brood chamber, where they suck on ant larva hemolymph. To our knowledge, this strategy constitutes the first known case of aggressive mimicry in aphids." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1101.full View in LinkedIn

INSTAR CULLING. "The cost-benefit logic of this type of polyculture husbandry has striking analogies with human farming practices based on slaughtering young animals for meat to maximize milk-production by a carefully regulated adult livestock population." http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/12/106?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BMCUMCG+(BioMed+Central+Publications+by+University+Medical+Center+Groningen) View in LinkedIn

MEAT VS HONEYDEW. "The ants appear to eat most of the early instar aphids, so that adult aphids are unlikely to face limited phloem resources and scramble competition with other aphids. We suggest that such culling of carbohydrate-providing symbionts for protein ingestion may maintain maximal host yield per aphid while also benefitting the domesticated aphids as long as their clone-mates reproduce successfully." (Instar, a transitory juvenile phase). https://lnkd.in/dYTnMRA) View in LinkedIn