THE association between farming ants and the fungus that they cultivate
involves a previously unrecognised bacterial partner, according to researchers
in Canada.
Cameron Currie and his colleagues at the University of Toronto found that a
powdery, whitish-grey crust sprinkled on the ants’ bodies is the bacterium
Streptomyces, not ant secretions as biologists had believed. The bacterium
produces potent antibiotics that target Escovopsis, a virulent fungal
parasite that attacks the ants’ gardens (Nature, vol 398, p 701).
All 22 species of fungus-farming ants that the team has examined carry the
bacterium.
