How Termites Use Ingenious Techniques to Keep Their Fungal Crops Contamination-Free

Some termite species are like farmers, growing their own fungus in nests. Take Odontotermes obesus—it cultivates Termitomyces fungus. This relationship benefits both parties. The fungus feeds the termites, while the termites shield it from harmful invaders like Pseudoxylaria, a weed-like fungus that can quickly take over.

A new study in Science explores how these industrious insects protect their crops. Researchers set up experiments where they introduced Pseudoxylaria into the Termitomyces. They observed how termites reacted.

At first, termites faced a lightly infected comb. They exhibited behaviors like removing the Pseudoxylaria tuft and covering it with soil. Impressively, this approach wiped out the infection in nearly 94% of cases. Though not all involved removing the tuft, most methods effectively contained it.

In a tougher challenge, the researchers used highly infected combs. Here, termites adapted; they often fully encased the infected comb with soil, achieving around 89% efficacy in stopping the spread.

When researchers glued fresh and infected pieces together, termites quickly identified and isolated the infected parts, showing their keen ability to manage risks.

Interestingly, the soil boluses used for encasement were key. Tests showed that sterilized soil couldn’t suppress infections, highlighting that the termites’ soil had unique properties that helped fend off Pseudoxylaria.

The authors summarized, “Termites have evolved an elegant solution to weed control, encasing infected combs with special soil.”

Understanding these natural strategies could offer insights for reducing fungal contamination in human agriculture. Learning from termite practices might pave the way for greener farming solutions, benefiting both ecosystems and food production.

If you’re interested in this research, you can read more in the full article: Fungus-farming termites can protect their crop by confining weeds with fungistatic soil boluses.

Source link

Science, Physics News, Science news, Technology News, Physics, Materials, Nanotech, Technology, Science