Month: September 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

THREE-WAY. "Niphanda fusca butterflies lay eggs on plants where ants tend herds of aphids. The eggs hatch as caterpillars which feed on the aphids. The ants do not defend the aphids from the caterpillars (this is due to the caterpillar producing a pheromone the ants detect making them think the caterpillar is actually one of them), but carry the caterpillars to their nest. In the nest, the ants feed the caterpillars, who in return produce honeydew for the ants." https://lnkd.in/dTDsdH3 View in LinkedIn

BACTERIAL VOLATILES. "Honeydew volatiles, mostly from bacterial origins, are known to be a key element in ant attraction...The relative attractiveness of volatiles emitted by honeydews collected from each aphid species and by bacteria isolated from each honeydew was in investigated. Again, ants significantly preferred volatiles released by Aphis fabae honeydew and bacteria. This information suggests that microbial honeydew volatiles enable ants to distantly discriminate aphid species." https://lnkd.in/dA6GrhP View in LinkedIn

SINGLE CLONAL FARMS. "Ants farm subterranean aphids...had considerable clonal diversity at the population level. Yet more than half of the ant mounds contained just a single aphid species, a significantly higher percentage than expected from a random distribution. Over 60% of these single-species mounds had a single aphid clone, and clones tended to persist across subsequent years." https://lnkd.in/dShsfQM View in LinkedIn

INSECTS. "It is roughly estimated that more than 70% of species host one or more bacterial symbionts." https://lnkd.in/dapi6EP View in LinkedIn