ants did it first
awild | November 22, 2009
Sericomyrmex ants in a laboratory fungus garden
The textbook version of the leafcutter ant and its fungus is a simple story: attine ants cultivate an edible fungus in their nests. They are obligate farmers, eating only the fungus, and the fungus is a specialized cultivar found only in ant nests.
It's a nice tale, but as researchers probe deeper they continually uncover just how complex the ant-fungus interaction is. For example, about a decade ago Cameron Currie discovered that ants employ bacterial antibiotics to keep the garden clean of diseases. Microbes, too, are integral to the…