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Convulsions and climbing behavior: After the fungus enters the ant, it propagates, and fungal cells are found beside the host's brain. Once the population is of sufficient size, the fungus secretes compounds and takes over the central nervous system (CNS), which enables it to manipulate the ant to reach the forest floor and climb up the vegetation.
The ant clamps its jaws around the plant in a "death grip" and following, mycelia grow from the ant's feet and stitch them to the surface of the plant. [9] The spores released from the ant carcass fall to the ground and infect other ants that come in contact with the spores so that this cycle continues. [ 10 ]
The fungus Escovopsis is a parasite in fungus-growing ant colonies that can greatly harm the fungal gardens through infection, [22] and the bacterium Pseudonocardia has a mutualistic relationship with ants. The relationship is thought to have been used by the ants for millions of years, co-evolving to produce the right type of antibiotics.
The scale of the farming done by fungus-farming ants can be compared to human's industrialized farming. [5] [11] [78] [79] A colony can "[defoliate] a mature eucalyptus tree overnight". [33] The cutting of leaves to grow fungus to feed millions of ants per colony has a large ecological impact in the subtropical areas in which they reside. [7]
Some host specialist entomopathogenic fungi have even evolved mechanisms of behavioral manipulation (e.g. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis - Zombie ant fungus) of their hosts. [7] These fungi hijack the insect nervous systems using various secondary metabolites and manipulate insect behavior to move the infected insect to a place which is ...
Leucocoprinus gongylophorus is a fungus in the family Agaricaceae which is cultivated by certain leafcutter ants. [1] Like other species of fungi cultivated by ants, L. gongylophorus produces gongylidia, nutrient-rich hyphal swellings upon which the ants feed. [2] Production of mushrooms occurs only once ants abandon the nest. [3]
American entomologist and myrmecologist Neal A. Weber began publishing his research on ants in 1934 continued to investigate the relationship between ants and fungus gardens for 35 years. Little had been published in the twentieth century about the species Escovopsis and ant gardens prior to his 1966 article "Fungus-growing ants" in the journal ...
A. sexdens, like all leafcutter ants, is mycophagic. They live in a symbiotic relationship with a fungus belonging to the subphylum Basidiomycota. Leaves and other soft plant material brought into the nest by the foragers is chewed into a pulp and fertilized with faeces. A small piece of fungus is placed on this substrate.