Morphologie et fonctionnement du filtre infrabuccal chez une attine AcroṀyrmex octospinosus (Reich) (Hymenoptera : Formicidae): role de la poche infrabuccale

Fungal enzymes transferred by leaf-cutting ants in their fungus gardens

“…The application of pectinases could be especially important to accelerate the early stages of degradation, due to its macerating effect on plant tissue (van Den Brock et al 1997). The ant's own metabohsm is less hkely to benefit from pectinases and CMCase, since they do not ingest entire plant-cells, but only the sap (Febvay & Kermarrec 1981). Insects normally produce their own proteases, but the fungal proteases could supplement the digestion in some essential ways.…”

Coevolution Between Attine Ants and Actinomycete Bacteria: A Reevaluation

“…Vertical, fungal transmission is achieved by dispersing queens, each carrying a pellet of compacted garden mycelium and substrate in a specialized pocket in the mouth (the infrabuccal pocket) and using it as a starter culture for a new garden in the incipient nest (Ihering 1898; Huber 1905). Pellets of leafcutter queens are large (about 0.5–0.7 mm diameter in Atta queens), and they can be extracted experimentally to examine the contents (Huber 1905; Quinlan and Cherrett 1978; Febvay and Kermarrec 1981). Pellets of leafcutter queens contain a diversity of microbes (Wheeler and Bailey 1920; Quinlan and Cherrett 1978; Febvay and Kermarrec 1981), but the secondary, noncultivar microbes in queen‐pellets have not been identified.…”

“…Pellets of leafcutter queens are large (about 0.5–0.7 mm diameter in Atta queens), and they can be extracted experimentally to examine the contents (Huber 1905; Quinlan and Cherrett 1978; Febvay and Kermarrec 1981). Pellets of leafcutter queens contain a diversity of microbes (Wheeler and Bailey 1920; Quinlan and Cherrett 1978; Febvay and Kermarrec 1981), but the secondary, noncultivar microbes in queen‐pellets have not been identified. The presence of actinomycete bacteria in the pellets of attine workers (Little et al 2003, 2006) raised the question whether queen‐pellets may also contain actinomycetes that may be vertically transmitted between ant generations, prompting our study to profile the actinomycete microbes present in the queen‐pellets of the leafcutter ant Atta texana .…”

Defending against parasites: fungus-growing ants combine specialized behaviours and microbial symbionts to protect their fungus gardens

“…Once full, the compressed material is expelled from the pocket as a pellet. To prevent microbes from re-establishing infection in the garden, leaf-cutter ants deposit their infrabuccal pellets in refuse piles segregated from their nest (Febvay & Kermarrec 1981). In contrast, ants in the more phylogenetically basal fungus-growing ant lineages stack and maintain their pellets in piles near their gardens (Little et al 2003).…”