Publikationsdatum:
2006-01-10
Beschreibung:
Attine ants engage in a quadripartite symbiosis with fungi they cultivate for food, specialized garden parasites, and parasite-inhibiting bacteria. Molecular phylogenetic evidence supports an ancient host-pathogen association between the ant-cultivar mutualism and the garden parasite. Here we show that ants rear the antibiotic-producing bacteria in elaborate cuticular crypts, supported by unique exocrine glands, and that these structures have been highly modified across the ants' evolutionary history. This specialized structural evolution, together with the absence of these bacteria and modifications in other ant genera that do not grow fungus, indicate that the bacteria have an ancient and coevolved association with the ants, their fungal cultivar, and the garden parasite.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Currie, Cameron R -- Poulsen, Michael -- Mendenhall, John -- Boomsma, Jacobus J -- Billen, Johan -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2006 Jan 6;311(5757):81-3.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA. currie@bact.wisc.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16400148" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Schlagwort(e):
Actinomycetales/growth & development/*physiology
;
Animals
;
Anti-Bacterial Agents/biosynthesis
;
Antibiosis
;
Ants/*anatomy & histology/*microbiology/physiology/ultrastructure
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Exocrine Glands/anatomy & histology/microbiology
;
Female
;
Fungi/*growth & development
;
Hypocreales/*growth & development
;
Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
;
Microscopy, Electron, Transmission
;
Phylogeny
;
Species Specificity
;
*Symbiosis
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Digitale ISSN:
1095-9203
Thema:
Biologie
,
Chemie und Pharmazie
,
Informatik
,
Medizin
,
Allgemeine Naturwissenschaft
,
Physik
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