Category: Uncategorized

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues with Leafcutter ants. These ancient and sophisticated creatures have figured out advanced fungal crop culture methods, including using living antibiotic cultures that co-evolve with the crop pathogens so resistance is never a persistent problem. They also clonally select the fungal crop for advantageous features. A peek at an advanced society. View in LinkedIn

GARDEN MICROBIOME. "Atta gardens contain a great diversity of antibiotic-secreting microbes in the biofilms and matrix of the gardens (the so-called garden microbiome) that may help suppress diseases." http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012668 View in LinkedIn

CO-DEPENDENT. "Neither ant nor fungus can survive without the other. Their partnership has fuelled the leafcutters’ success—they come in more than 40 species, and have among the largest colonies of any ant." https://lnkd.in/ekUnHks View in LinkedIn

DIVISION OF LABOR. "The necrotrophic parasitic fungus Escovopsis threatens the ants' food source, thus is a constant danger to the ants. The waste transporters and waste-heap workers are the older, more dispensable leafcutter ants, ensuring the healthier and younger ants can work on the fungal garden." https://lnkd.in/ej4XkBq View in LinkedIn

HYGENE PROCEDURES. "A cast of small Atta workers is dedicated largely to the tending and cleaning of garden...Sequestration into discrete garden units also permits the ants to respond locally to disease, for example by sealing off an infected garden and thus prevent a pandemic spread of a disease throughout a nest." http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012668 View in LinkedIn

"MONOCULTURE of fungi in the long-lived, sessile Atta nests is expected to facilitate build-up of specialized diseases, which is the bane of clonally propagated crops in human agriculture (e.g., banana, sugar cane, potato." https://lnkd.in/ew5j47P View in LinkedIn

"THE COMPLEXITY of the leaf-cutter ant symbiosis is further highlighted by the presence of a specialized microfungal pathogen that exploits the ant-fungus mutualism. As a result, the leaf-cutter ant symbiosis comprises at least three established mutualists and one specialized pathogen...this ant-microbe symbiosis is perhaps one of the most complex examples of symbiosis currently described." https://lnkd.in/eCSpjH7 View in LinkedIn

OTHER SYMBIONTS. "The fungus garden is also known to harbor other microbial symbionts including nitrogen-fixing bacteria that provide both fungus and ants with nitrogen, and a diverse community of fungus garden bacteria that appear to help the fungus degrade plant biomass." https://lnkd.in/eCSpjH7 View in LinkedIn

SECOND SYMBIOSIS. "Symbiotic N2-fixing bacteria were consistently isolated from the fungus gardens of 80 leaf-cutter ant colonies collected in Argentina, Costa Rica, and Panama. The discovery of N2 fixation within the leaf-cutter ant−microbe symbiosis reveals a previously unrecognized nitrogen source in neotropical ecosystems." https://lnkd.in/eRtgKaB View in LinkedIn

FUNGUS ENZYME ENRICHED POO. "Droplets of this fecal fluid are mixed with the new leaf material that the ants fragment to become fungus garden substrate, and we infer that it is particularly in this time window that the pectinolytic enzymes enhance the efficiency of the symbiosis." https://lnkd.in/egbNxUr View in LinkedIn