Even ants suffer superpests
in big farms
Just like farmers' huge, one-crop
operations, the biggest fungus gardens tended by ants are especially
vulnerable to specialized weeds.
References:
Currie, C.R., U.G. Mueller, and D. Malloch. 1999. The agricultural
pathology of ant fungus gardens. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences 96(July 6):7998.
Mueller, U.G., S.A. Rehner, and T.R. Schultz. 1998. The evolution
of agriculture in ants. Science 281(Sept. 25):2034.
Further Readings:
Milius, S. 1999. Farmer ants have bacterial farmhands. Science
News 155(April 24):261.
______. 1998. Old MacDonald was an ant. Science News 154(Nov.
21):334.
Sources:
Jacobus J. Boomsa
University of Copenhagen
Department of Population Ecology
Zoological Institute
Universitetsparken 15
DK 2100 - Copenhagen O
Denmark
Cameron R. Currie
University of Toronto
Department of Botany
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B2
Canada
Ted R. Schultz
Smithsonian Museum
National Museum of Natural History
Department of Entomology, MRC 165
Washington, DC 20560
From Science
News, Vol. 156, No. 2, July 10, 1999, p. 22.
Copyright © 1999, Science Service.
