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Variable interaction specificity and symbiont performance in Panamanian Trachymyrmex and Sericomyrmexfungus-growing ants

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Ecology and Evolution, December 2014
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Title
Variable interaction specificity and symbiont performance in Panamanian Trachymyrmex and Sericomyrmexfungus-growing ants
Published in
BMC Ecology and Evolution, December 2014
DOI 10.1186/s12862-014-0244-6
Pubmed ID
Authors

Henrik H De Fine Licht, Jacobus J Boomsma

Abstract

BackgroundCooperative benefits of mutualistic interactions are affected by genetic variation among the interacting partners, which may have consequences for interaction-specificities across guilds of sympatric species with similar mutualistic life histories. The gardens of fungus-growing (attine) ants produce carbohydrate active enzymes that degrade plant material collected by the ants and offer them food in exchange. The spectrum of these enzyme activities is an important symbiont service to the host but may vary among cultivar genotypes. The sympatric occurrence of several Trachymyrmex and Sericomyrmex higher attine ants in Gamboa, Panama provided the opportunity to do a quantitative study of species-level interaction-specificity.ResultsWe genotyped the ants for Cytochrome Oxidase and their Leucoagaricus fungal cultivars for ITS rDNA. Combined with activity measurements for 12 carbohydrate active enzymes, these data allowed us to test whether garden enzyme activity was affected by fungal strain, farming ants or combinations of the two. We detected two cryptic ant species, raising ant species number from four to six, and we show that the 38 sampled colonies reared a total of seven fungal haplotypes that were different enough to represent separate Leucoagaricus species. The Sericomyrmex species and one of the Trachymyrmex species reared the same fungal cultivar in all sampled colonies, but the remaining four Trachymyrmex species largely shared the other cultivars. Fungal enzyme activity spectra were significantly affected by both cultivar species and farming ant species, and more so for certain ant-cultivar combinations than others. However, relative changes in activity of single enzymes only depended on cultivar genotype and not on the ant species farming a cultivar.ConclusionsAnt cultivar symbiont-specificity varied from almost full symbiont sharing to one-to-one specialization, suggesting that trade-offs between enzyme activity spectra and life-history traits such as desiccation tolerance, disease susceptibility and temperature sensitivity may apply in some combinations but not in others. We hypothesize that this may be related to ecological specialization in general, but this awaits further testing. Our finding of both cryptic ant species and extensive cultivar diversity underlines the importance of identifying all species-level variation before embarking on estimates of interaction specificity.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 49 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Denmark 1 2%
Belgium 1 2%
Unknown 47 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 9 18%
Researcher 8 16%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 16%
Student > Bachelor 5 10%
Other 4 8%
Other 9 18%
Unknown 6 12%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 24 49%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 5 10%
Environmental Science 4 8%
Immunology and Microbiology 2 4%
Mathematics 1 2%
Other 1 2%
Unknown 12 24%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 December 2014.
All research outputs
#20,653,708
of 25,371,288 outputs
Outputs from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#3,267
of 3,714 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#273,442
of 368,016 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#61
of 72 outputs
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