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Ants, plants and antibiotics

Nature volume 398, pages 747–748 (1999)Cite this article

The partnership between ants and their fungal gardens has a newly discovered third member — a bacterium, which grows on the ants' bodies and produces antibiotics to kill a parasite that infects their crops.

Roughly 50 million years ago in South America, a lone species of ant abandoned its primitive hunter-gatherer ways and, in a unique event in ant evolution, adopted an agrarian lifestyle. Entering into a partnership with a parasol mushroom, these agricultural pioneers learned to weed, manure and propagate their fungal crops, ensuring a reliable source of food. From this innovative ancestral stock arose the ant group Attini, of which there are now about 210 species, largely concentrated in wet, South American forests.

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Figure 1: Ants use antibiotics to control garden pests.

DAN L. PERMAN

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  1. the Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, MRC 165, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 20560, DC, USA

    Ted R. Schultz

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  1. Ted R. Schultz
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Schultz, T. Ants, plants and antibiotics. Nature 398, 747–748 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/19619

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