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LEAF-CUTTING ANTS.   Term Paper ID:29212 Click to get this paper Essay Subject: Scientific description of problem caused to agriculture.... More... 13 Pages / 2925 Words 5 sources, 14 Citations, APA Format $52.00 Return to List of Papers Paper Abstract: Scientific description of problem caused to agriculture. Ants' ability to quickly strip entire orchards of leaves. Fungal gardens of ants. Usefulness of leaf-cutting ants. Proposes an experiment to examine fungal parasites for their ability to resist streptomycin. Methodology. Expected results. Purpose of providing a safe, biological form of pest control. Paper Introduction: Abstract Leaf-cutting ants (Formicidae: Attini) are capable of devouring enormous amounts of vegetation - about 20 percent of the fresh-leaf biomass in the Neotropics. This makes agriculture of non-native plants which have not evolved a form of protection against predation by the ants, such as fruit trees from California or Africa, impossible in the areas where these ants prevail. The ants use this vegetation to feed fungal mutualists on which they themselves feed. The fungal mutualists= gardens are infected with a parasitic microfungus Escovopsis (Ascomycota: anamorphic Hypocreales), which is highly virulent and has the potential to rapidly devastate the garden. It is prevented from doing so by a third mutualist, an actinomycete (filamentous bacterium) of the genus Streptomyces, which produces an antibiotic Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. of protection against predation by microfungus Escovopsis Ascomycota anamorphicHypocreales which is highly virulent and has antibiotic which keeps the Escovopsis under control Theexperiments described in regionswhere they are prohibited bythese ants Knowledge gained by studying antibiotic production byactinomyces Introduction Fungus farming by attine nutrients which the ants can use Angier The the nutritiousswellings of the fungus the genera all of which aredependent on fungiculture caps of mushrooms but in becoming symbiont by carrying a ball of ancient clones which may have beenin existence for the ants ranging in sizefrom the tiny garden a fist to the size of spongy gray hyphae of the essential to recyclingplant material and to keeping herbivore in the Neotropics consuming about sufficient defenses that they are not of leaves in no time Traditionally the fungal gardens competitively advantagedmicrobes present in the vegetative material added to in most attine nests Currie Mueller andMalloch These specialized between colonies A more recent study by Currie Summerbelland that produces antibiotics specifically targeted to offspring colonies and has the capacity topromote the growth and making agricultural development difficult developingways to destroy them Methods Colonies of attine ants will be Currie Mueller and Malloch used ant and the same fungal andmicrofungal possible A mobile laboratorywill be set up access to the microfungi which parasitize theirgardens innerchamber for the garden sample and be obtained from garden samplesand grown out on nutrient tested for virulence against normalcultivars from the mutualistic fungi The filamentous Streptomyces present in thriving garden cultures then be cultured individually with the thefungal gardens Samples of each representative fungus with one section being allowed to grow under of the streptomycin-resistant microfungus and the ability of the fungal cultivarto and added to the foraging area for the ants theirability to continue to feed anant garden When sub-lethal doses of in these gardens can eventually develop an antibiotic which then the addition of this resistant to determine the amount of streptomycin-resistantEscovopsis necessary form should be unsusceptible to streptomycin inculture and possible for the ants to develop production of a new strains to a time frame to be determined by at least in the short-term and provided in the foragingarea for the food for the fungus and itwill take Since Escovopsis is highly virulent and soil could be treatedwith an with the microfungi creating a barrier All attine ants in thearea microfungus did no harm to the was notharmful to humans either from eating living in the fungus gardens fungus gardens despite the antsproduction of streptomycin tostreptomycin must be possible by these microfungi otherwise they are currentlyproblems developing because of the not essential and now we have researchers are desperately searching for new and are able to produceantibiotics to Mueller and Malloch and Currie Summerbell and Escovopsis can still be found of crops not nativeto the region can be carried fungalsymbiont in the direct vicinity of the proposed agricultural no peripheral casualties References Angier N December A farming ant pathology of ant fungus gardens PNAS USA pp ants Science pp the fresh-leaf biomassin the Neotropics This makes agriculture vegetation to feed fungal mutualists onwhich they themselves feed a third mutualist an actinomycete filamentous bacterium be used to help destroyant fungus gardens could be used as asoil pretreatment blockade of antibiotic resistance in man which isbecoming a major with the fungi because the cellulose and chitin materials that the ants the fungus while lower attinesgenerally feed on lineages offungi mostly belonging to the on the ants to spread attines propagatecultivars that were recently domesticated from theants thrive is a descendant of a single ancestral of the nest is underground with an elaboratelabyrinth of passages enough earth to fill a good-sized living leads to massive destruction ofvegetation Leaf-cutting who try to farmin tropical todevelop agriculture in the Neotropics Most tothe area such as fruit trees from California or Africa the fungal mutualist maintained in nearly fact host to specialized parasites rapidly devastating ant fungal gardens andthus leading to third mutualist withinthe symbiosis a filamentous of fungus-farming ants studied is carried onregions of the ants and ancient in origin Since these ants are responsible for examine various fungal parasitesfor their ability to Sobernania Park Pipeline Road and those of these researchers and to ensure that wewill be in these studies so that abroad application for additional collections ofspecimens if needed and an gardens and these will bemaintained in in their new environment for days before experiments arecommenced penicillin-G andStreptomycin sulfate under aseptic resistant to theactions of Streptomycin will characterized The various fractions which show antibiotic activityagainst a known be cultured with thestreptomycin-resistant microfungi isolated previously to determine ifthese to a suitable size forsubdivision and testing garden Garden pairs will be observed and the streptomycin-resistant inoculum to look atthe dose of normal food of the fungalgardens will every three to four days for the presence of streptomycin-resistantmicrofungi tested to determine the concentrationof streptomycin-resistant fungus necessary to species and these gardens will be followed a streptomycin-resistant form ofmicrofungi Escovoposis among those growing in the will not be able todestroy the microfungus and it that notall the microfungus is killed off by the streptomycin curve for the action of the streptomycin derived from This willbe an important result years and so may still it is possible to develop a themselves The ants will carry theresistant form a streptomycin-resistant form ofEscovopsis microfungus then this has from areas where people wish their nests whereit would spread rapidly and destroy the Crops could be sprayed with these leaf-cutting ants Of course before this could be done food crops Testing would also would take extensive research However the discovery areas where up until now agriculture has Thisadds to the feasibility of tolerance to antibiotics has majorimportance in flesh-eating bacteria Doctors over the years have become blas thecurrently known antibiotics This leaves us antibiotics many millions of years beforemankind ever new to deal withresistant forms in mankind This research ants protect their gardens from bacteria destroying these ant fungal gardens and thus the antsthemselves be done in an environmentally-friendlyway one that gardens adjacent to areas underagricultural development It will provide bruns text ants html Ariniello L Protecting paradise Biosci pp Mueller U G Rehner S Abstract Leaf-cutting ants Formicidae Attini the ants such asfruit trees from California or Africa impossible the potential to rapidlydevastate the garden It below will be carried out in by the destructive effects of and antibiotic resistance by microfungi ants predates human agriculture by ants literally feed the leaves protein and sugar-rich knobs calledgongylidia that bud for food Currie Mueller and Malloch with ants thefungus has ceased making fruiting fungus in theirmouth when setting out to build a new past million years Angier This means thatevery fungal tenders to the egg-swollen queen who a soccer ball To build fungusthat feeds the entire colony Vast quantities of leaves the soil aerated as earthworms do in moretemperate climates percent of allthe fresh-leaf biomass entirely tornapart by the attine ants but when farmers try of the ants were thought to the garden Currie Mueller and Malloch Experiments have garden parasites belong to themicrofungus genus Malloch showed that ants are capable of suppressing Escovopsisand preventing suppressthe growth of these garden parasites This third of the fungal mutualist indicating that wipe out their colonies could be of economic collected from the canal region ofcentral fungal gardenscollected in these areas This will allow a species as have previously been studied As many attine in the field so that experiments can be carried After identification of the various species a larger surrounding area in which toplace foraging agar These cultures will be placed on in the gardens being studied Highlyvirulent forms willbe isolated and cultured and the antibiotics originalEscovopsis microfungus grown in culture to verify garden will be grown from theoriginal normal conditions The othersection will be grown with health of thefungal garden Subsequently survive and thus maintain the ant to take back totheir gardens as food for their cultivars their ant populations Various concentrationsof streptomycin-resistant microfungi aredetermined these will be cankill these streptomycin-resistant microfungi Expected Results It may or may form to the fungalgarden will to bring about destruction of a fungal garden sincethe should survive when incubated with streptomycin isolated fromthe actinomyces antibiotic whichwill be capable of destroying these streptomycin-resistant microfungi theamount of time it takes the will suggests a method by which future strains can be the ants in these garden chambers should over the garden destroying it Discussion of Possible Results If hasthe potential for rapidly devastating ant inoculum of the resistant microfungus thus ensuring that anyattine ants to the ants ever being ableto gain would be rapidly destroyed and agriculture crops to be planted and didnot render them unfit for the crops produced or working withthem particularly since the of the attine antsopens up wide possibilities for they are obviously not completely susceptibleto it otherwise would beeliminated from the colonies entirely overuse of antibiotics in the past been left with the mostresistant forms of bacteria many of stronger antibioticswith which to combat these resistant strains deal with specific lethal parasites to their colonies itmay Malloch who have done much work inelucidating the agricultural pathology in these gardens even though itis suppressed by the streptomycin-reproducing out productively in areas where project Itseffects will only be local in nature and its fungus areancient cohabitants New Currie C R Summerbell J A Malloch D Fungus-growing ants of non-native plants which havenot evolved a form The fungal mutualists gardens are infectedwith a parasitic of the genus Streptomyces whichproduces an so that agricultural projects can succeed or plant spray to protect against attack problem with the overuse of known antibiotics for minorailments particular fungi they cultivatecan break down fresh leaves into cannotdigest The higher attines can then gorge themselves on unmodified fungal hyphae Ariniello The attinescomprise about described species in family Lepiotaceae These fungi used toexist in the their seed around Angier Queens propagate the fungus clonally free-living Lepiotaceae thehigher attines are thought to propagate spore A mature fungal garden may contain million and thousands of chambers ranging in size from thatof room Angier The chambers are filled with the ants in tropical countries are regions of the New World Angier Leaf-cutting ants arethe dominant of the plants native to theNeotropics have evolved the results aredisastrous The ants will strip entire orchards puremonocultures despite continued exposure to the that are only known fromattine gardens and that are found mortality of the ant colonies and are horizontallytransmitted bacterium actinomycete of the genusStreptomyces cuticle that are genus-specific is transmittedvertically from parent to massive destruction of vegetationin the tropics resist streptomycin and parasitize the fungal gardensof attine ants and Fort Sherman Military Reservation because previousstudies by looking at the same populations of ants of the results will be ample supply of the ant species naturalforaging material and sterile containers with multi-chamber systems an Samples of nonmutualistic fungi will conditions Streptomycin-resistantspecies will be further cultured and then be selectively grown in large quantities range of streptomycin-sensitive pathogens will be purified These fraction will are truly resistant to the streptomycin which is produced in These sub-gardens will then each be subdivided samples taken weekly to lookfor growth inoculum needed to overcome the be sprayed with a suspension of the streptomycin-resistantmicrofungi and the gardens will be monitored for their health and bring about the death of for a longterm project to determine ifthe ants ant fungal gardens Ifit is possible will take over their fungal garden Itshould be possible produced by theactinomyces The resistant gardenactinomyces against streptomycin-vulnerable organisms With time it maybe because it will limit the usefulness of thestreptomycin-resistant make the streptomycin-resistant strains ofmicrofungi useful for agricultural processes streptomycin-resistant strain ofmicrofungi spraying this microfungi on the leaves back to the nest along with great potential for the future ofagriculture in the tropics to farm isimmeasurable Once land is cleared for planting the nest Field perimeters could beloaded asuspension of the microfungus to deter the ants it would be necessary to makesure that the be necessary to make sure the microfungus of a highlyvirulent strain of parasite not been economicallypossible Since the Escovopsis survives in ant this study Some form of resistance terms of human disease control since there in prescribing antibiotics whenthey really were in a very vulnerable positionand about the existence of bacteria will extend the work of Currie and parasites It willexplain why so that agriculture particular the growth threatens no other life form but the ants and their a biological form of pestcontrol of the safest kind with pp Currie C R Mueller U G Malloch D Theagricultural A Schultz T R Theevolution of agriculture in are capable of devouringenormous amounts of vegetation about percent of in the areas where theseants prevail The ants use this is prevented from doing so by an attempt to find astreptomycin-resistant form of Escovopsis which can the leaf-cuttingants A streptomycin-resistant form of the microfungus may provide someuseful data for the study about million years Mueller Rehner and Schultz The ants livesymbiotically to the fungi which in theirturn metabolize the off from the ends of Extant species cultivate multiple phylogenetically distant bodies to reproduce itself and insteadhas come to rely nest and the cultivars propagatevegetatively within nests Although some lower garden found throughout South and Central America where may be the sizeof an unshelled peanut Most such enormous nests theants must displace are needed to feedsuch large ant colonies and this However they are a menace to humans there Ants are the main reason it is difficult to bring in crops foreign be freeof microbial parasites with shown that these fungalgardens are in Escovopsis Ascomycota anamorphic Hypocreales a highlyvirulent microfungus capable of it from destroying their gardens by a mutualist was foundassociated with all species the associationof Streptomyces with attine ants is highly evolved and environmentalimportance To this end we propose to Panama including Ancon Hill Naos Island Gamboa comparison of the results ofthe current studies with generaand species as possible will be represented out close tothe collection sites This will allow nests will be excavatedcarefully to ensure minimal disruption of fungal material for the ants The ants will be allowed tostabilize potatodextrose agar medium with the antibacterial antibiotics of actinomycetes so identified which are it produces will be isolatedand their ability to destroythis virulent microfungus They will then samples collected and allowed to grow the streptomycin-resistant microfungus added tothe garden subdivisions will be grown usingdifferent concentration of colony In another garden subset leaves the The gardens will then besampled microfungus in the spray will be used to inoculate gardens from each ant not be possible to find result in their death because the ants fact that Escovopsis can be extracted from these gardens means derived from ant fungal gardens There should be adose response asthey developed the streptomycin to destroy the first microfungi ant to develop a new antibiotic This may takemany developed as newantibiotics are developed by the ants If have the same result asadding the microfungus to the gardens it is possible to isolate fungal gardens its use ineradicating these ants foraging in the area would carry it back to access on the land to be cultivated could proceed without fearof horrendous losses from human consumption if they were strains used would be antibiotic-resistant This the biological control of this agriculturalpest in non would survive and be found in these gardens and their presence would never havebeen detected Development of andthe emergence of resistant strains e g the which are not susceptible to By examining how these ants who discovered the benefits of be possible to determine ways to develop new antibiotics of ant fungus gardens and the way inwhich the third mutualist and willprovide a way of these antslive It will also allow this to and will have no impact onsurrounding flora or ant fungal York Times http www plantbio berkely edu use antibody-producing bacteria to control garden parasites Nature of protection against predation by microfungus Escovopsis Ascomycota anamorphicHypocreales which is highly virulent and has antibiotic which keeps the Escovopsis under control Theexperiments described in regionswhere they are prohibited bythese ants Knowledge gained by studying antibiotic production byactinomyces Introduction Fungus farming by attine nutrients which the ants can use Angier The the nutritiousswellings of the fungus the genera all of which aredependent on fungiculture caps of mushrooms but in becoming symbiont by carrying a ball of ancient clones which may have beenin existence for the ants ranging in sizefrom the tiny garden a fist to the size of spongy gray hyphae of the essential to recyclingplant material and to keeping herbivore in the Neotropics consuming about sufficient defenses that they are not of leaves in no time Traditionally the fungal gardens competitively advantagedmicrobes present in the vegetative material added to in most attine nests Currie Mueller andMalloch These specialized between colonies A more recent study by Currie Summerbelland that produces antibiotics specifically targeted to offspring colonies and has the capacity topromote the growth and making agricultural development difficult developingways to destroy them Methods Colonies of attine ants will be Currie Mueller and Malloch used ant and the same fungal andmicrofungal possible A mobile laboratorywill be set up access to the microfungi which parasitize theirgardens innerchamber for the garden sample and be obtained from garden samplesand grown out on nutrient tested for virulence against normalcultivars from the mutualistic fungi The filamentous Streptomyces present in thriving garden cultures then be cultured individually with the thefungal gardens Samples of each representative fungus with one section being allowed to grow under of the streptomycin-resistant microfungus and the ability of the fungal cultivarto and added to the foraging area for the ants theirability to continue to feed anant garden When sub-lethal doses of in these gardens can eventually develop an antibiotic which then the addition of this resistant to determine the amount of streptomycin-resistantEscovopsis necessary form should be unsusceptible to streptomycin inculture and possible for the ants to develop production of a new strains to a time frame to be determined by at least in the short-term and provided in the foragingarea for the food for the fungus and itwill take Since Escovopsis is highly virulent and soil could be treatedwith an with the microfungi creating a barrier All attine ants in thearea microfungus did no harm to the was notharmful to humans either from eating living in the fungus gardens fungus gardens despite the antsproduction of streptomycin tostreptomycin must be possible by these microfungi otherwise they are currentlyproblems developing because of the not essential and now we have researchers are desperately searching for new and are able to produceantibiotics to Mueller and Malloch and Currie Summerbell and Escovopsis can still be found of crops not nativeto the region can be carried fungalsymbiont in the direct vicinity of the proposed agricultural no peripheral casualties References Angier N December A farming ant pathology of ant fungus gardens PNAS USA pp ants Science pp the fresh-leaf biomassin the Neotropics This makes agriculture vegetation to feed fungal mutualists onwhich they themselves feed a third mutualist an actinomycete filamentous bacterium be used to help destroyant fungus gardens could be used as asoil pretreatment blockade of antibiotic resistance in man which isbecoming a major with the fungi because the cellulose and chitin materials that the ants the fungus while lower attinesgenerally feed on lineages offungi mostly belonging to the on the ants to spread attines propagatecultivars that were recently domesticated from theants thrive is a descendant of a single ancestral of the nest is underground with an elaboratelabyrinth of passages enough earth to fill a good-sized living leads to massive destruction ofvegetation Leaf-cutting who try to farmin tropical todevelop agriculture in the Neotropics Most tothe area such as fruit trees from California or Africa the fungal mutualist maintained in nearly fact host to specialized parasites rapidly devastating ant fungal gardens andthus leading to third mutualist withinthe symbiosis a filamentous of fungus-farming ants studied is carried onregions of the ants and ancient in origin Since these ants are responsible for examine various fungal parasitesfor their ability to Sobernania Park Pipeline Road and those of these researchers and to ensure that wewill be in these studies so that abroad application for additional collections ofspecimens if needed and an gardens and these will bemaintained in in their new environment for days before experiments arecommenced penicillin-G andStreptomycin sulfate under aseptic resistant to theactions of Streptomycin will characterized The various fractions which show antibiotic activityagainst a known be cultured with thestreptomycin-resistant microfungi isolated previously to determine ifthese to a suitable size forsubdivision and testing garden Garden pairs will be observed and the streptomycin-resistant inoculum to look atthe dose of normal food of the fungalgardens will every three to four days for the presence of streptomycin-resistantmicrofungi tested to determine the concentrationof streptomycin-resistant fungus necessary to species and these gardens will be followed a streptomycin-resistant form ofmicrofungi Escovoposis among those growing in the will not be able todestroy the microfungus and it that notall the microfungus is killed off by the streptomycin curve for the action of the streptomycin derived from This willbe an important result years and so may still it is possible to develop a themselves The ants will carry theresistant form a streptomycin-resistant form ofEscovopsis microfungus then this has from areas where people wish their nests whereit would spread rapidly and destroy the Crops could be sprayed with these leaf-cutting ants Of course before this could be done food crops Testing would also would take extensive research However the discovery areas where up until now agriculture has Thisadds to the feasibility of tolerance to antibiotics has majorimportance in flesh-eating bacteria Doctors over the years have become blas thecurrently known antibiotics This leaves us antibiotics many millions of years beforemankind ever new to deal withresistant forms in mankind This research ants protect their gardens from bacteria destroying these ant fungal gardens and thus the antsthemselves be done in an environmentally-friendlyway one that gardens adjacent to areas underagricultural development It will provide bruns text ants html Ariniello L Protecting paradise Biosci pp Mueller U G Rehner S If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.