ArticleMolecular ecology2016
The fungal cultivar of leaf-cutter ants produces specific enzymes in response to different plant substrates.
Article in Molecular ecology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Deciphering taxon-specific metabolic shifts during pathogenic fungal infection in leaf-cutter ant fungal gardens.ISME communications · 2026Article
- A Conserved Lignocellulolytic Secretome with Quantitative Modulation inMycobiology · 2026Article
- Phylogenetic insights into the diversification of cutting strategies in leaf-cutting ants.Frontiers in insect science · 2026Article
- You are what your fungus eats: diet shapes the microbial garden of a fungus-growing ant.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Article
- Examining the Assembly of the Bacterial Community Associated with the Fungus Garden of Atta mexicana (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): Does Queen Origin Matter?Current microbiology · 2025Article
- Mapping microhabitats of lignocellulose decomposition by a microbial consortium.Nature chemical biology · 2024Article
- The Hyphosphere of Leaf-Cutting Ant Cultivars Is Enriched with Helper Bacteria.Microbial ecology · 2023Article
- Review
- Tripartite Symbiotic Digestion of Lignocellulose in the Digestive System of a Fungus-Growing Termite.Microbiology spectrum · 2022Article
- The Symbiotic FungusInsects · 2022Review
- A fungal symbiont converts provisioned cellulose into edible yield for its leafcutter ant farmers.Biology letters · 2022Article
- Lessons From Insect Fungiculture: From Microbial Ecology to Plastics Degradation.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- Chemical Gradients of Plant Substrates in anmSystems · 2021Article
- Article
- From Plants to Ants: Fungal Modification of Leaf Lipids for Nutrition and Communication in the Leaf-Cutter Ant Fungal Garden Ecosystem.mSystems · 2021Article
- Bacteria Contribute to Plant Secondary Compound Degradation in a Generalist Herbivore System.mBio · 2020Article
- Fungus-growing insects host a distinctive microbiota apparently adapted to the fungiculture environment.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Metagenomics Reveals Diet-Specific Specialization of Bacterial Communities in Fungus Gardens of Grass- and Dicot-Cutter Ants.Frontiers in microbiology · 2020Article
- Defensive Symbioses in Social Insects Can Inform Human Health and Agriculture.Frontiers in microbiology · 2020Article
- Fungal Genomes and Insights into the Evolution of the Kingdom.Microbiology spectrum · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Herbivores use symbiotic microbes to help derive energy and nutrients from plant material. Leaf-cutter ants are a paradigmatic example, cultivating their mutualistic fungus Leucoagaricus gongylophorus on plant biomass that workers forage from a diverse collection of plant species. Here, we investigate the metabolic flexibility of the ants' fungal cultivar for utilizing different plant biomass. Using feeding experiments and a novel approach in metaproteomics, we examine the enzymatic response of L. gongylophorus to leaves, flowers, oats or a mixture of all three. Across all treatments, our analysis identified and quantified 1766 different fungal proteins, including 161 putative biomass-degrading enzymes. We found significant differences in the protein profiles in the fungus gardens of subcolonies fed different plant substrates. When provided with leaves or flowers, which contain the majority of their energy as recalcitrant plant polymers, the fungus gardens produced more proteins predicted to break down cellulose: endoglucanase, exoglucanase and β-glucosidase. Further, the complete metaproteomes for the leaves and flowers treatments were very similar, while the mixed substrate treatment closely resembled the treatment with oats alone. This indicates that when provided a mixture of plant substrates, fungus gardens preferentially break down the simpler, more digestible substrates. This flexible, substrate-specific enzymatic response of the fungal cultivar allows leaf-cutter ants to derive energy from a wide range of substrates, which likely contributes to their ability to be dominant generalist herbivores.
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