He ants typically suppress tendencies of fungus gardens to reproduce sexually
He ants generally suppress tendencies of fungus gardens to reproduce sexually by means of mushrooms, and as far as these happen to be reported it remains unclearwhether they could create viable haploid spores beneath natural circumstances .Indications for some admixture and possible recombination have been located , but evidence that this relates to meiotic sexual events is lacking.The ca.extant species of Atta and Acromyrmex leafcutting ants all Procyanidin B1 Data Sheet appear to cultivate haplotypes of a single species L.gongylophorus , however the Leucoagaricus symbionts of Trachymyrmex and Sericomyrmex have greater genetic diversity .Even so, this insight is depending on a single study of T.septentrionalis cultivating 4 distinctive specieslevel lineages of fungus towards the northern distribution limit from the attine ants .Specieslevel interaction specificity (sensu ) in richer tropical communities has remained unstudied, so it remains unknown whether or not .Sympatric ant species belonging towards the very same ecological “guild” generally associate with numerous symbiont species or sometimes cultivate a single symbiont in spite of alternatives getting obtainable, and .Sympatry implies that nonspecialized hosts constantly share all out there symbiont species.The objective of our study was to assess interaction specificity of Trachymyrmex and Sericomyrmex fungusgrowing ants living sympatrically in a seasonal lowland rainforest ecosystem in Panama, by genotyping each the ants and their fungus gardens and measuring the activity of plant cellwall degrading enzymes right away upon collection.As their name implies, leafcutting ants mainly forage for fresh leaves, whereas Trachymyrmex and Sericomyrmex species collect a significantly a lot more diverse spectrum of freshly shed flowers, thin fallen leaf fragments, minor twigs, caterpillar feces and seeds .Fungusgrowing ant foraging profiles vary in space and time, but have a substantial speciesspecific variance component that could impact fungus garden enzyme activity for the reason that carbohydratedegrading enzymes are induced instead of constitutively created .By focusing our sampling on a single geographical location and particular time with the year we ensured as a lot as you can that foraging spectra reflected all-natural nearby niche differentiation.Differences in fungus garden enzyme activity amongst cultivar genotypes had been therefore most likely to reflect functionality differences of direct mutualistic relevance .Strategies Fungusgrowing ants were collected as complete colonies with fungus gardens in Could in Parque National Soberan , Panama (the Gamboa location and forest along Pipeline Road) ten colonies of T.cornetzi (Forel), nine colonies of T.sp nine colonies of T.zeteki (Weber), and ten colonies of Sericomyrmex amabilis (Wheeler), giving a total of colonies that had been brought to the Smithsonian Tropical Study Institute (STRI) laboratory in Gamboa, Panama.Trachymyrmex sp.(“blackhead”) is a known undescribed species that happens sympatricallyDe Fine Licht and Boomsma BMC Evolutionary Biology , www.biomedcentral.comPage ofwith T.cornetzi in its investigated range in Panama .These Trachymyrmex and Sericomyrmex species had been previously shown to have massive randomly mating populations at our sampling internet site (Parque National Soberan) , PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21325703 so the probability that we sampled colonies with recent frequent descent was negligible.Fungal cultivar and host ant genotypingFungal DNA was extracted by putting small tufts of mycelium from alcohol preserved fungus garden material in l of a Chelex resin (SigmaAldrich, cat.no).