Duarte A P M, Ferro M, Rodrigues A, Bacci M, Nagamoto N S, Forti L C, Pagnocca F C
Center for the Study of Social Insects, UNESP - São Paulo State University, Avenida 24-A, n. 1515, Bela Vista, Rio Claro, SP, 13.506-900, Brazil.
Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, UNESP - São Paulo State University, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil.
Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek. 2016 Sep;109(9):1235-43. doi: 10.1007/s10482-016-0724-3. Epub 2016 Jun 15.
The relationship of attine ants with their mutualistic fungus and other microorganisms has been studied during the last two centuries. However, previous studies about the diversity of fungi in the ants' microenvironment are based mostly on culture-dependent approaches, lacking a broad characterization of the fungal ant-associated community. Here, we analysed the fungal diversity found on the integument of Atta capiguara and Atta laevigata alate ants using 454 pyrosequencing. We obtained 35,453 ITS reads grouped into 99 molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs). Data analysis revealed that A. capiguara drones had the highest diversity of MOTUs. Besides the occurrence of several uncultured fungi, the mycobiota analysis revealed that the most abundant taxa were the Cladosporium-complex, Cryptococcus laurentii and Epicoccum sp. Taxa in the genus Cladosporium were predominant in all samples, comprising 67.9 % of all reads. The remarkable presence of the genus Cladosporium on the integument of leaf-cutting ants alates from distinct ant species suggests that this fungus is favored in this microenvironment.
在过去的两个世纪里，切叶蚁与其共生真菌及其他微生物之间的关系一直是研究的对象。然而，以往关于蚂蚁微环境中真菌多样性的研究大多基于依赖培养的方法，缺乏对与蚂蚁相关真菌群落的广泛特征描述。在此，我们使用454焦磷酸测序技术分析了卡皮瓜拉切叶蚁（Atta capiguara）和光腹切叶蚁（Atta laevigata）有翅蚁体表的真菌多样性。我们获得了35453条内转录间隔区（ITS）序列读数，这些读数被归为99个分子操作分类单元（MOTUs）。数据分析表明，卡皮瓜拉切叶蚁雄蚁的MOTUs多样性最高。除了发现几种未培养的真菌外，真菌群落分析还显示，最丰富的类群是枝孢菌复合体、罗伦隐球酵母（Cryptococcus laurentii）和附球菌属（Epicoccum sp.）。枝孢菌属的类群在所有样本中占主导地位，占所有读数的67.9%。枝孢菌属在来自不同蚁种的切叶蚁有翅蚁体表显著存在，这表明这种真菌在该微环境中具有优势。
