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Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi
A dead conspecific poses a potential pathogen risk for social animals. We have discovered that Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) prevent spread of pathogenic fungi from corpses by depositing the dead to combined toilet and refuse areas and applying pygidial gland secretion on them. The presence of...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31110201 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44144-z |
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author | Kesäniemi, Jenni Koskimäki, Janne J. Jurvansuu, Jaana |
author_facet | Kesäniemi, Jenni Koskimäki, Janne J. Jurvansuu, Jaana |
author_sort | Kesäniemi, Jenni |
collection | PubMed |
description | A dead conspecific poses a potential pathogen risk for social animals. We have discovered that Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) prevent spread of pathogenic fungi from corpses by depositing the dead to combined toilet and refuse areas and applying pygidial gland secretion on them. The presence of a corpse in a nest increases this secretion behaviour. We identified three fungi growing on Argentine ant corpses. Growth of the Argentine ant pathogen Aspergillus nomius and the plant pathogen Fusarium solani on corpses was inhibited as long as the ants were constantly attending them as the ant anal secretion only delayed germination of their spores. In contrast, the effect of the ant anal secretion on the human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus was much stronger: it prevented spore germination and, accordingly, the fungus no longer grew on the treated corpses. The Argentine ants are one of the world’s worst invasive alien species as they cause ecological and economical damage in their new habitats. Our discovery points at a novel method to limit Argentine ant colonies through their natural fungal pathogens. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6527551 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65275512019-05-30 Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi Kesäniemi, Jenni Koskimäki, Janne J. Jurvansuu, Jaana Sci Rep Article A dead conspecific poses a potential pathogen risk for social animals. We have discovered that Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) prevent spread of pathogenic fungi from corpses by depositing the dead to combined toilet and refuse areas and applying pygidial gland secretion on them. The presence of a corpse in a nest increases this secretion behaviour. We identified three fungi growing on Argentine ant corpses. Growth of the Argentine ant pathogen Aspergillus nomius and the plant pathogen Fusarium solani on corpses was inhibited as long as the ants were constantly attending them as the ant anal secretion only delayed germination of their spores. In contrast, the effect of the ant anal secretion on the human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus was much stronger: it prevented spore germination and, accordingly, the fungus no longer grew on the treated corpses. The Argentine ants are one of the world’s worst invasive alien species as they cause ecological and economical damage in their new habitats. Our discovery points at a novel method to limit Argentine ant colonies through their natural fungal pathogens. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-05-20 /pmc/articles/PMC6527551/ /pubmed/31110201 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44144-z Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Kesäniemi, Jenni Koskimäki, Janne J. Jurvansuu, Jaana Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi |
title | Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi |
title_full | Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi |
title_fullStr | Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi |
title_full_unstemmed | Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi |
title_short | Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi |
title_sort | corpse management of the invasive argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31110201 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44144-z |
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