Ants, plants and antibiotics: The partnership between ants and their fungal gardens has a newly discovered third member

Article Abstract:

There are around 210 species of the Attini ant group, including the well-known leaf cutting ants. Naturalist Thomas Belt deduced that the leaf cutting ants make use of leaves as a manure on which they grow fungus on which they feed. The two-part symbiosis between ant and fungus has been accepted, but Currie and colleagues have reported that attine symbiosis may involve ant, fungus and antibiotic-producing bacterium, along with a parasitic fungal wee that infects attine gardens. They have identified highly specialized parasites in the Escovopsis fungal genus.

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Origin of ant soldiers

Article Abstract:

Ant soldiers originate from reproductive females (gynes) rather than from ant workers. This opposes the long-standing hypothesis that workers and soldiers are a subset of a biologically homogeneous workers caste. The soldiers are more similar to gynes than workers in the same species of ants. The gynes and soldiers have a narrower behavioral repertoire as compared to ant workers. The physiological, behavioral, morphological, and pathological similarities between soldiers and gynes in several ant species are discussed.

Social behavior in animals, Animal social behavior

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Oldest known ant fossils discovered

Article Abstract:

Fossil ants including three workers and four males have been discovered in amber from the Turonian stage (92 million years ago) of New Jersey. Two of the males are a new species of the Cretaceous genus Baikuris, while the third male belongs to a genus not yet determined and the fourth has been provisionally assigned to Sphecomyrma. Another worker represents a new genus. The addition of two new taxa supports the basal position of Sphecomyrma, but as part of a quadritomy.

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