Ancient tripartite coevolution in the attine ant-microbe symbiosis.
Science, 2003/1/17;299(5605):386-8.
Currie CR[1], Wong B, Stuart AE, Schultz TR, Rehner SA, Mueller UG, Sung GH, Spatafora JW, Straus NA
Affiliations
PMID: 12532015
Impact factor: 63.714
Abstract
The symbiosis between fungus-growing ants and the fungi they cultivate for food has been shaped by 50 million years of coevolution. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that this long coevolutionary history includes a third symbiont lineage: specialized microfungal parasites of the ants' fungus gardens. At ancient levels, the phylogenies of the three symbionts are perfectly congruent, revealing that the ant-microbe symbiosis is the product of tripartite coevolution between the farming ants, their cultivars, and the garden parasites. At recent phylogenetic levels, coevolution has been punctuated by occasional host-switching by the parasite, thus intensifying continuous coadaptation between symbionts in a tripartite arms race.
MeSH terms
Agaricales; Animals; Ants; Ascomycota; Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; Biological Evolution; DNA, Fungal; Hypocreales; Phylogeny; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Symbiosis
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