Ancient Tripartite Coevolution in the Attine Ant-Microbe Symbiosis
Science2003Vol. 299(5605), pp. 386–388
Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2003 papers
Cameron R. Currie, Bess Wong, Alison E. Stuart, Ted R. Schultz, Stephen A. Rehner, Ulrich G. Mueller, Gi‐Ho Sung, Joseph W. Spatafora, Neil A. Straus
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.
Related Papers
- → Mutualism Persistence and Abandonment during the Evolution of the Mycorrhizal Symbiosis(2016)121 cited
- → Mutual fitness benefits arise during coevolution in a nematode-defensive microbe model(2018)72 cited
- → Figs and fig pollinators: evolutionary conflicts in a coevoled mutualism(1997)165 cited
- → Insect-Fungus Symbiosis: Nutrition, Mutualism and Commensalism(1981)4 cited
- → The role of indirect effects in coevolution as mutualism transitions into antagonism(2021)3 cited