An ant-plant mutualism through the lens of cGMP-dependent kinase genes.

In plant-animal mutualisms, how an animal forages often determines how much benefit its plant partner receives. In many animals, foraging behaviour changes in response to gene expression or activation of the cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) that encodes. Here, we show that this highly conserved molecular mechanism affects the outcome of a plant-animal mutualism.