Publication Date:
2009-12-08
Description:
It is unclear how mutualistic relationships can be stable when partners disperse freely and have the possibility of forming associations with many alternative genotypes. Theory predicts that high symbiont relatedness should resolve this problem, but the mechanisms to enforce this have rarely been studied. We show that African fungus-growing termites propagate single variants of their Termitomyces symbiont, despite initiating cultures from genetically variable spores from the habitat. High inoculation density in the substrate followed by fusion among clonally related mycelia enhances the efficiency of spore production in proportion to strain frequency. This positive reinforcement results in an exclusive lifetime association of each host colony with a single fungal symbiont and hinders the evolution of cheating. Our findings explain why vertical symbiont transmission in fungus-growing termites is rare and evolutionarily derived.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Aanen, Duur K -- de Fine Licht, Henrik H -- Debets, Alfons J M -- Kerstes, Niels A G -- Hoekstra, Rolf F -- Boomsma, Jacobus J -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2009 Nov 20;326(5956):1103-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1173462.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University, 6700 AH Wageningen, Netherlands. duur.aanen@wur.nl〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19965427" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Biological Evolution
;
Genes, Fungal
;
Genetic Variation
;
Isoptera/*microbiology/*physiology
;
Spores, Fungal/growth & development
;
*Symbiosis
;
Termitomyces/classification/genetics/growth & development/*physiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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