Fungal Garden Making inside Bamboos by a Non-Social Fungus-Growing Beetle

Fungal Garden Making inside Bamboos by a Non-Social Fungus-Growing Beetle

In fungus-growing mutualism, it is indispensable for host animals to establish gardens of the symbiotic fungus as rapidly as possible. How to establish fungal gardens has been well-documented in social fungus-farming insects, whereas poorly documented in non-social fungus-farming insects. Here we report that the non-social, fungus-growing lizard beetle Doubledaya bucculenta (Coleoptera: Erotyli...

Fungal Farming in a Non-Social Beetle

Culturing of microbes for food production, called cultivation mutualism, has been well-documented from eusocial and subsocial insects such as ants, termites and ambrosia beetles, but poorly described from solitary, non-social insects. Here we report a fungal farming in a non-social lizard beetle Doubledaya bucculenta (Coleoptera: Erotylidae: Languriinae), which entails development of a special ...

Growing a garden of neurons

Computational models of biologically realistic neuronal networks have advanced neuroscience in the past 20 years. With an ultimate goal of simulating a whole brain, these networks must become larger and more complex. However, a sheer massive number of neurons do not make a brain. Neurons are all different, with different kinetics, neurotransmitters, and importantly different morphologies. A net...

Morphophysiological Differences between the Metapleural Glands of Fungus-Growing and Non–Fungus-Growing Ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

The metapleural gland is an organ exclusive to ants. Its main role is to produce secretions that inhibit the proliferation of different types of pathogens. The aim of the present study was to examine the morphophysiological differences between the metapleural gland of 3 non-fungus-growing ants of the tribes Ectatommini, Myrmicini, and Blepharidattini and that of 5 fungus-growing ants from 2 bas...

The effects of temperature on fungal symbionts in the mountain pine beetle-fungus multi-partite symbiosis