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HOBBLING THE COWS. "The ants have been known to bite the wings off the aphids in order to stop them from getting away and depriving the ants of one of their staple foods: the sugar-rich sticky honeydew which is excreted by aphids when they eat plants. Chemicals produced in the glands of ants can also sabotage the growth of aphid wings." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009212548.htm View in LinkedIn

MUTUALISTIC SYMBIOSIS. "In the best known relationship between ants and aphids, ants eat the sugar-rich honeydew excreted by the aphids and, in return, provide them with protection and hygienic services. This kind of interaction is termed trophobiosis and is considered to be mutualistic." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1101.full View in LinkedIn

BROAD SPECTRUM. "Understanding the evolutionary transition from interspecific exploitation to cooperation is a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Ant–aphid relationships represent an ideal system to this end because they encompass a coevolutionary continuum of interactions ranging from mutualism to antagonism." https://lnkd.in/d9truvs View in LinkedIn

VIDEO of ants extracting honeydew from aphids by hypnotically stroking the aphids with their antenna to induce the cooperative behavior of secreting a drop of honeydew from their abdomen. https://lnkd.in/dbca4rV View in LinkedIn

PASSING. "Antennation is involved in many aspects of ant social life such as kin recognition, brood discrimination, and enemy specification whereas licking is a grooming behavior performed by ants on their larvae and other nest mates. The occurrence of a set of distinctive behaviors typical of ant-larvae care, including antennation, transportation to the brood chamber, and licking, along with their high adoption rate, strongly suggests that the flat morph is successfully mimicking ant larvae." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1101.full View in LinkedIn

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

DISTRIBUTION. “Introns of lincRNA genes contain the highest percentage of TE-derived sequences (TES), followed by exons and then promoter regions although the density of TEs is not significantly different between exons and promoters.” (TE = transposable elements); (lincRNA = Long intergenic non-coding RNA). https://lnkd.in/dwuaM5f View in LinkedIn

SPARED. “The promoters of lincRNA appear to similarly enjoy greater plasticity and flexibility compared to the promoters of protein-coding genes.” (lincRNA = Long intronic non-coding RNA). https://lnkd.in/dwuaM5f View in LinkedIn

FOSSIL VIRUSES AND EVOLUTION. “We demonstrate that TEs substantially contribute to the evolution of lincRNAs and their promoter regions.” (TE = transposable elements); (lincRNA = Long intergenic non-coding RNA). https://lnkd.in/dwuaM5f View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this case study of the relationship between ants and aphids, and of the microbiota in aphids. Without the microbiota, the aphids would starve, and higher up the food chain, the ants would be forced to earn a living differently. Dutch dolls. A series of exquisitely nested relationships that have been honed by aeons. View in LinkedIn