AI Article Synopsis

  • Plants contain lots of organic carbon, mainly in forms that most animals can't break down, but some herbivores, like leaf-cutter ants, rely on microbes to get nutrients from this material.
  • Leaf-cutter ants create fungus gardens using fresh leaves to grow a specific fungus called Leucoagaricus gongylophorus, which helps them process plant material.
  • The research reveals the genome of L. gongylophorus and its role in breaking down plant biomass, showing that it produces various enzymes needed for this process, which is crucial for the ants' survival and for carbon cycling in their ecosystems.

Article Abstract

Plants represent a large reservoir of organic carbon comprised primarily of recalcitrant polymers that most metazoans are unable to deconstruct. Many herbivores gain access to nutrients in this material indirectly by associating with microbial symbionts, and leaf-cutter ants are a paradigmatic example. These ants use fresh foliar biomass as manure to cultivate gardens composed primarily of Leucoagaricus gongylophorus, a basidiomycetous fungus that produces specialized hyphal swellings that serve as a food source for the host ant colony. Although leaf-cutter ants are conspicuous herbivores that contribute substantially to carbon turnover in Neotropical ecosystems, the process through which plant biomass is degraded in their fungus gardens is not well understood. Here we present the first draft genome of L. gongylophorus, and, using genomic and metaproteomic tools, we investigate its role in lignocellulose degradation in the gardens of both Atta cephalotes and Acromyrmex echinatior leaf-cutter ants. We show that L. gongylophorus produces a diversity of lignocellulases in ant gardens and is likely the primary driver of plant biomass degradation in these ecosystems. We also show that this fungus produces distinct sets of lignocellulases throughout the different stages of biomass degradation, including numerous cellulases and laccases that likely play an important role in lignocellulose degradation. Our study provides a detailed analysis of plant biomass degradation in leaf-cutter ant fungus gardens and insight into the enzymes underlying the symbiosis between these dominant herbivores and their obligate fungal cultivar.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3675943PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/AEM.03833-12DOI Listing

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