Leaf Cutter Ants
The following information is directly taken from seedsforeducation.org
Leaf Cutter Ants – Why Should We Care?
The leaf cutter ant colonies in the forest vary in size from brand new colonies to colonies that have perhaps 8 million ants in the colony. We deal with a species of leaf cutters called Atta Cephalotes. These leaf cutter ants can be seen marching single file through the rainforest with leaf sections twice as large as the ants themselves. These sections of tropical forest leaves have been harvested form the very top of the canopy of the rainforest where the leaf cutters ascend to use their fast cutting lower jaws(mini saws that operate at 1200 cycles per second) to cut the leaf sections from the forest canopy. These leaves are toxic to the ants, never the less the ants transport the leaf sections down the height of the forest trees, along the forest floor to the entrance to the tunnel system that interconnects the various chambers of their colony. Once at the entry to the leaf cutter ant underground maize the leaf cutter turns the leaf over to another worker ant that is more suited to shredding the leaf into a pulverized mass at the same time as the ant creates a new compost pile of shredded material deep into the bowls of the system of chambers that make up the colonies underground city.
Once the material decays it provides nutrients which allows fungus to grow and it is the tips of the fungus that the ants use for food. Thus, we have another species on our planet, beside ourselves, that undertake farming to raise their own crops for subsistence. However, for 10 decades there was a mystery as to how these ants kept their fungus gardens free of contaminating pathogens.
This was a world class mystery until a young PHD student(Cameron Currie from the University of Montreal) came along and discovered that these fungus gardens not only have a deadly parasitic mold(called Escovopsis), but that the ants are indeed producing antibiotics which serve to provide protection to these rainforest ant cities from infections of their massive fungus gardens. Cameron Currie discovered that these ants cultivate a bacteria called Streptomyces which is the source of roughly half of the antibiotics manufactured by our pharmaceutical industry. This remarkable discovery has now given us a new mystery. The antibiotics that our pharmaceutical industry produces can only manufacture antibiotics that remain effective for two or three or four generations. We are literally running out of antibiotics because the diseases we use these against are evolving resistance to our antibiotics faster than we can create new antibiotics to be used against the new strains of diseases. Our population faces an imminent disaster as each year we have fewer effective antibiotics that the year before. We are running out of antibiotics at a rate that should be seen as nothing more than a looming catastrophe. Yet these ants have been successful in maintaining their fungus gardens for 65 million years.
For more information on the Research Lab, please click here.
Leaf Cutter Ants – Why Should We Care?
The leaf cutter ant colonies in the forest vary in size from brand new colonies to colonies that have perhaps 8 million ants in the colony. We deal with a species of leaf cutters called Atta Cephalotes. These leaf cutter ants can be seen marching single file through the rainforest with leaf sections twice as large as the ants themselves. These sections of tropical forest leaves have been harvested form the very top of the canopy of the rainforest where the leaf cutters ascend to use their fast cutting lower jaws(mini saws that operate at 1200 cycles per second) to cut the leaf sections from the forest canopy. These leaves are toxic to the ants, never the less the ants transport the leaf sections down the height of the forest trees, along the forest floor to the entrance to the tunnel system that interconnects the various chambers of their colony. Once at the entry to the leaf cutter ant underground maize the leaf cutter turns the leaf over to another worker ant that is more suited to shredding the leaf into a pulverized mass at the same time as the ant creates a new compost pile of shredded material deep into the bowls of the system of chambers that make up the colonies underground city.
Once the material decays it provides nutrients which allows fungus to grow and it is the tips of the fungus that the ants use for food. Thus, we have another species on our planet, beside ourselves, that undertake farming to raise their own crops for subsistence. However, for 10 decades there was a mystery as to how these ants kept their fungus gardens free of contaminating pathogens.
This was a world class mystery until a young PHD student(Cameron Currie from the University of Montreal) came along and discovered that these fungus gardens not only have a deadly parasitic mold(called Escovopsis), but that the ants are indeed producing antibiotics which serve to provide protection to these rainforest ant cities from infections of their massive fungus gardens. Cameron Currie discovered that these ants cultivate a bacteria called Streptomyces which is the source of roughly half of the antibiotics manufactured by our pharmaceutical industry. This remarkable discovery has now given us a new mystery. The antibiotics that our pharmaceutical industry produces can only manufacture antibiotics that remain effective for two or three or four generations. We are literally running out of antibiotics because the diseases we use these against are evolving resistance to our antibiotics faster than we can create new antibiotics to be used against the new strains of diseases. Our population faces an imminent disaster as each year we have fewer effective antibiotics that the year before. We are running out of antibiotics at a rate that should be seen as nothing more than a looming catastrophe. Yet these ants have been successful in maintaining their fungus gardens for 65 million years.
For more information on the Research Lab, please click here.
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