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.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1999
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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.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1996
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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.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1998
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