Ants are skilled farmers: They have solved a problem that we humans have
yet to

Date:
November 4, 2020
Source:
University of Copenhagen
Summary:
Ants have been farmers for tens of millions of years and
successfully solved a riddle that we humans have yet to. A new study
reports that ants are pros at cultivating climate-resilient crops.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Fungus-farming ants are an insect lineage that relies on farmed fungus for their survival. In return for tending to their fungal crops -- protecting
them against pests and pathogens, providing them with stable growth
conditions in underground nests, and provisioning them with nutritional 'fertilizers' -- the ants gain a stable food supply.


========================================================================== These fungus farming systems are an expression of striking collective organization honed over 60 million years of fungus crop domestication. The farming systems of humans thus pale in comparison, since they emerged
only ca.

10,000 years ago.

A new study from the University of Copenhagen, and funded by an ERC
Starting Grant, demonstrates that these ants might be one up on us as far
as farming skills go. Long ago, they managed to appear to have overcome
key domestication challenges that we have yet to solve.

"Ants have managed to retain a farming lifestyle across 60 million years
of climate change, and Leafcutter ants appear able to grow a single
cultivar species across diverse habitats, from grasslands to tropical rainforest" explains Jonathan Z. Shik, one of the study's authors and
an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen's Department
of Biology.

Through fieldwork in the rainforests of Panama, he and researchers from
the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute studied how fungus-farming
ants use nutrition to manage a tradeoff between the cultivar's
increasingly specialized production benefits, and it's rising
vulnerability to environmental variation.

Ants as clever farmers We humans have bred certain characteristics --
whether a taste or texture - - into our crops.



==========================================================================
But these benefits of crop domestication can also result in greater
sensitivity to environmental threats from weather and pests, requiring increasing pesticide use and irrigation. Simply put, we weaken plants
in exchange for the right taste and yield. Jonathan Z. Shik explains:
"The ants appear to have faced a similar yield-vulnerability tradeoff
as their crops became more specialized, but have also evolved plenty
of clever ways to persist over millions of years. For example, they
became impressive architects, often excavating sophisticated and climate-controlled subterranean growth chambers where they can protect
their fungus from the elements," he says.

Furthermore, these little creatures also appear able to carefully regulate
the nutrients used to grow their crops.

To study how, Shik and his team spent over a hundred hours lying on
rainforest floor on trash bags next to ant nests. Armed only with forceps,
they stole tiny pieces of leaves and other substrates from the jaws of
ants as they returned from foraging trips.

They did this while snakes slithered through the leaf litter and monkeys
peered down at him from the treetops.



==========================================================================
"For instance, our nutritional analyses of the plant substrates foraged
by leafcutter ants show that they collect leaves, fruit, and flowers from hundreds of different rainforest trees. These plant substrates contain a
rich blend of protein, carbohydrates and other nutrients such as sodium,
zinc and magnesium," explains Shik. "This nutritional blend can target
the specific nutritional requirements of their fungal crop." What can
we learn from ants? Over the years, the ants have adapted their leaf collecting to the needs of the fungus -- a kind of organic farming,
without the benefits of the technological advances that have helped
human farmers over the millenia, one might say.

One might wonder, is it possible to simply copy their ingenious methods? "Because our plant crops require sunlight and must thus be grown
above ground, we can't directly transfer the ants' methods to our own agricultural practices.

But it's interesting that at some point in history, both humans and
ants have gone from being hunter-gatherers to discovering the advantages
of cultivation.

It will be fascinating to see what farming systems of humans look like
in 60 million years," concludes Jonathan Z. Shik.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Copenhagen. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Jonathan Z. Shik, Pepijn W. Kooij, David A. Donoso, Juan C. Santos,
Ernesto B. Gomez, Mariana Franco, Antonin J. J. Crumie`re, Xavier
Arnan, Jack Howe, William T. Wcislo, Jacobus J. Boomsma. Nutritional
niches reveal fundamental domestication trade-offs in fungus-farming
ants.

Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41559-020-01314-x ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201104102209.htm

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