Bacterial community composition and diversity in an ancestral ant fungus symbiosis.

FEMS Microbiol Ecol

Section of Integrative Biology, Patterson Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station #C0930, Austin, TX 78712, USA.

Published: July 2015

AI Article Synopsis

  • - Fungus-farming ants are involved in complex relationships with fungi and a variety of microorganisms that help with nutrition and defense, but most research has focused on advanced species rather than the more primitive 'lower attines.'
  • - This study used advanced sequencing technology to analyze the bacterial communities associated with the lower attine ant Mycocepurus smithii in Panama, finding that their microbiota differed from surrounding soil yet was more similar between the ants and their fungi than in higher attine species.
  • - Unlike more derived ant species with abundant antibiotic-producing bacteria, these lower attines showed low levels of actinomycetes and instead had high levels of Lactobacillus and Pantoea, which likely come from their environment rather than

Article Abstract

Fungus-farming ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae, Attini) exhibit some of the most complex microbial symbioses because both macroscopic partners (ants and fungus) are associated with a rich community of microorganisms. The ant and fungal microbiomes are thought to serve important beneficial nutritional and defensive roles in these symbioses. While most recent research has investigated the bacterial communities in the higher attines (e.g. the leaf-cutter ant genera Atta and Acromyrmex), which are often associated with antibiotic-producing Actinobacteria, very little is known about the microbial communities in basal lineages, labeled as 'lower attines', which retain the ancestral traits of smaller and more simple societies. In this study, we used 16S amplicon pyrosequencing to characterize bacterial communities of the lower attine ant Mycocepurus smithii among seven sampling sites in central Panama. We discovered that ant and fungus garden-associated microbiota were distinct from surrounding soil, but unlike the situation in the derived fungus-gardening ants, which show distinct ant and fungal microbiomes, microbial community structure of the ants and their fungi were similar. Another surprising finding was that the abundance of actinomycete bacteria was low and instead, these symbioses were characterized by an abundance of Lactobacillus and Pantoea bacteria. Furthermore, our data indicate that Lactobacillus strains are acquired from the environment rather than acquired vertically.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiv073DOI Listing

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