For the last 60 million years, fungus-growing ants have farmed fungi for food. In their cultivation of those fungi, they've successfully relied on bacteria-produced antimicrobial ingredients to protect their crops from other ...
Ecology
Sep 26, 2019
0
443
Azteca ants are better at limiting pathogenic microbes in their nurseries than humans, according to a new study. The research also found that the microbial make-up—or microbiome—of ant colonies varies from chamber to ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 21, 2019
0
148
Relationships are complex, and species living in Amazonian rainforests are no exception.
Ecology
Aug 19, 2019
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104
Many animals have to move around in their environment to find resources to live and reproduce.
Mathematics
Aug 6, 2019
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92
It started out as a typical day at work for ant researcher Christina Kwapich.
Plants & Animals
Jul 29, 2019
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32
Biologists Laura Carolina Leal and Felipe Passos have performed a series of experiments to determine how plants with extrafloral nectaries interact with ants in Brazil's Northeast region—specifically, in the interior of ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 18, 2019
0
43
If it's thoughts of zombies that keep you awake at night, you shouldn't be worried about zombie humans; it's the carpenter ants (Camponotus castaneus) that should concern you most. When infected by a specialised fungus (Ophiocordyceps ...
Ecology
Jul 18, 2019
0
17
Researchers studied ants in the Simpson Desert for 22 years and found that local changes in climate, such as long-term increases in rainfall, combined with human efforts to restore ecosystems, may have led to increased numbers ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 16, 2019
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77
Humans began cultivating crops about 12,000 years ago. Ants have been at it rather longer. Leafcutter ants, the best-known insect farmers, belong to a lineage of insects that have been running fungus farms based on chopped-up ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 24, 2019
0
2
Have you have seen ants this year? In Britain, they were probably black garden ants, known as Lasius niger—Europe's most common ant. One of somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000 species, they are the scourge of gardeners—but ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 21, 2019
0
3
