Biology 2483A Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Leafcutter Ant, Mycorrhiza, Fig Wasp

• School: Western University
• Department: Biology
• Course: Biology 2483A
• Professor: Hugh Henry

Document Summary

Ant farmers nourish, protect, and eat the fungal species they grow forms a relationship that benefits both the ant cannot survive without their fungi; the fungi cannot survive without the ants. The fungi are cultivate in underground gardens colony may contain hundreds of garden, each the size of a football feed 2-8 million ants. The fungi produce specialized structures called gongylidia, on which the ants feed. The ants scrape a waxy covering from the leaves that the fungi have difficulty penetrating the fungus digests and detoxifies the chemicals that plants use to deter insect herbivores. Ants respond to escovopsis by increasing garden weeding rates. They also enlist the help of other species ants carry a bacterium that makes chemicals that inhibit escovopsis the bacteria also secrete compounds that promote the growth of the cultivated fungi (help from a third species)