Fungus-growing ants use antibiotic-producing bacteria to control garden parasites

The well-studied, ancient and highly evolved mutualism between fungus-growing ants and their fungi has become a model system in the study of symbiosis. Although it is thought at present to involve only two symbionts, associated with each other in near isolation from other organisms, the fungal gardens of attine ants are in fact host to a specialized and virulent parasitic fungus of the genus Escovopsis (Ascomycotina).

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