The researchers, from the University of Wisconsin, the Joint Genome Institute and Emory University, are studying the genomes of 17 different ants, fungi and bacteria that collectively break down 400kg of dry leaves each year. The research marks the first time that a team has attempted to map a community genome, which facilitates a symbiotic relationship between the three different species. Business Green
In the wild, armies of leaf cutter ants fan out across the rainforest floor searching for leaves. Using their powerful jaws, they cut out sections of leaves and then carry them back to their underground nests, where they feed the leaves to carefully tended gardens of fungi.
The fungi secrete enzymes onto the leaves that break down various molecules, leaving behind sugar that the ants use as food.
Once the fungi have broken down all they can, the ants remove the leaf pieces from the fungal garden, carry them to the surface and discard them in heaps around the nest. Bacteria continue to break down the leftover leaves, so the waste doesn’t overwhelm the ant colony.
Exactly which molecules the fungi and the bacteria break down is still under investigation. msnbc.com
“By sequencing genomes of all the major players, we can study the evolution of the system,” says Cameron Currie, a UW-Madison bacteriology professor and one of the project’s lead researchers. “It would be one of the first, if not the first, genomic level study of a community of organisms over evolutionary time.”
As winners of Roche Applied Science’s 10 Gigabase Grant Program, UW-Madison and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) scientists Currie, Steven Slater and Garret Suen will be part of a team that will use Roche technology to sequence the known members of the ant-fungus symbiosis, which includes three ant genomes and 14 ant-associated fungal and bacterial genomes. University of Wisconsin-Madison University Communications
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