It turns out that fungus growing termites sometimes cultivate Termitomyces titanicus. This is an excellent scientific name.
CORRECTION:
I assumed they had to work like ants. Wrong! (A fruiting body would only emerge from a dead ant colony not so with these termites) Something about macrotermitinaes nuptial flights stimulates mushroom fruiting. (!) They get covered in pink spores.
And you can eat it!
Hence the species name.
The fungi farmed by ants (Leucoagaricus gongylophorus) also produces mushrooms when their colonies die out. This fungi can't survive without the ants and the ants propagate it by carrying it with them when they found new nests:
So what is the purpose of the mushrooms?
Is it just a hold-over from the days before the fungi was dependent on ants?
I've been trying to find out if you can eat the ones that grow on old ant nests.
"gongylophorus" isn't a bad name for the fungi of the Atta. The ants have domesticated them to make gongylidia which are like little underground ant treats that form on the mycelium. So it's a gongylophorus fungi, or a fungi that makes gelatinous translucent protein packed ant treats.
And we think we are so slick with our beans and corn and apples.
@futurebird i had always assumed that the ant fungus fruiting bodies were just tiny things growing on the fungus that the ants would constantly eat...
It's never really found just living on its own without ants to take care of it?
Ants keep it clean, set the correct humidity, feed it plant matter...
In fact, many antkeepers have tried to farm it (so they have extra fungi for their pet ants) and it's basically been impossible for people to do it, even with clean rooms, carefully cut leaves and humidity chambers.
It's totally dependent on ants.
Now... could it maybe float as spores and join an existing ant colony? Maybe? IDK
I've been slowly reading this paper on the genetics of the crops of various ants. At lest per genus there isn't much crossover. And even per species.
@futurebird @PetraOleum i used to work on this in grad school - hard fungus to collect!
The fungus packs the hyphal swelling that it feeds to the ants with enzymes to degrade plant material. The ants eat the hyphal swellings, and then defacate on fresh plant material as they bring it into a nest. This is perhaps one reason why the fungus can't live alone now - it needs the ants to pre-treat the leaves with these enzymes in order to grow efficiently. Bizarre stuff!
@futurebird @starwall ants are amazing, it is known
Are there any domesticated aphid species that can't live without their farmers, I wonder
Not aphids that I know of, but there is a species of scale insect that is deeply dependent on Acropyga who keeps them underground on plant roots. These ants are cryptic and carry a pregnant scale insect in their mandibles with them when they start a new colony.
The scale insects are like cows ... they can't survive without the ants that keep them. And I guess they must be docile towards ants.
@futurebird I thought this was odd - ants aren’t allowed to look at antwiki?
Anyway, I went to antwiki partly to see if it would explain why they are called acropyga, which with my limited knowledge sounds like it means they have high butts.
@[email protected] @[email protected] i used to work on this in grad school - hard fungus to collect! The fungus packs the hyphal swelling that it feeds to the ants with enzymes to degrade plant material. The ants eat the hyphal swellings, and then defacate on fresh plant material as they bring it into a nest. This is perhaps one reason why the fungus can't live alone now - it needs the ants to pre-treat the leaves with these enzymes in order to grow efficiently. Bizarre stuff!
@futurebird mycologist partner didn't know about the mushrooms, says thanks for the info. She says 99% of mushrooms are not seriously toxic but you don't want to get the one that is!
These are handy for the ants because they procure plant carbohydrates stripped of all the chemical defenses the plants use to stop ants eating them. Sneaky!
When the ants are gone is when nutrient levels drop which is typical mushroom forming time. It's possible they reproduce mostly asexually (via the ants) but undergo occasional sexual reproduction to shuffle the genes once in a while (some fungi do this). If you could send a mushroom to a mycologist they might be able to answer some of these questions.
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