Figures
Sister Act.
Leaf-cutter ants are widespread neotropical herbivores that farm a fungus for food using leaves. This obligate ant-fungus symbiosis forms the foundation of their complex societies and their colonies can contain millions of workers ranging in size from small fungus tenders to large soldiers. In this issue of PLoS Genetics, Suen et al. report the genome sequence of the leaf-cutter ant Atta cephalotes. Genome comparisons with other social and non-social insects reveal features of their obligate lifestyle. These include loss of genes involved in nutrient acquisition and amino acid biosynthesis, suggesting a role in helping to stabilize this ant-fungus mutualism over its ancient coevolutionary history.
Image Credit: Alex Wild.
Citation: (2011) PLoS Genetics Issue Image | Vol. 7(2) February 2011. PLoS Genet 7(2): ev07.i02. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pgen.v07.i02
Published: February 24, 2011
Copyright: © 2011 Wild. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Leaf-cutter ants are widespread neotropical herbivores that farm a fungus for food using leaves. This obligate ant-fungus symbiosis forms the foundation of their complex societies and their colonies can contain millions of workers ranging in size from small fungus tenders to large soldiers. In this issue of PLoS Genetics, Suen et al. report the genome sequence of the leaf-cutter ant Atta cephalotes. Genome comparisons with other social and non-social insects reveal features of their obligate lifestyle. These include loss of genes involved in nutrient acquisition and amino acid biosynthesis, suggesting a role in helping to stabilize this ant-fungus mutualism over its ancient coevolutionary history.
Image Credit: Alex Wild.