Old Association

2003/01/20 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Biologia
• Zoologia

In the association of several ants and fungi is a third participant.

Several ants cut the leaves of some trees; one night they can leave a whole tree without leaves. However, by not being able to digest these leaves, they work with some fungi. It is an effective symbiosis. The fungi digest the leaves and ants care for and 'raise' the fungi colonies. This symbiosis is 50 million years old.

Now, American biologists at the University of Kansas have discovered that this association has had a third partner: a microorganism. This microorganism is also fungus and pathogen for the great fungus. Infect the colonies and hinder the participants of the symbiosis. Sometimes, the pathogens are destroyed throughout the colony.

Scientists have followed the pathogen footprint by analyzing DNA and have found that it has participated in the association since the beginning. The examples in which three species have evolved together are rare and little known.