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Complementary symbiont contributions to plant decomposition in a fungus-farming termite

2014; National Academy of Sciences; Volume: 111; Issue: 40 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1073/pnas.1319718111

1091-6490

Michael Poulsen, Haofu Hu, Cai Li, Zhensheng Chen, Luohao Xu, Saria Otani, Sanne Nygaard, Tânia Nobre, Sylvia Klaubauf, Philipp M. Schindler, Frank Hauser, Hailin Pan, Zhikai Yang, A.S.M. Sonnenberg, Z. Wilhelm de Beer, Yong Zhang, Michael J. Wingfield, Cornelis J.P. Grimmelikhuijzen, Ronald P. de Vries, Judith Korb, Duur K. Aanen, Jun Wang, Jacobus J. Boomsma, Guojie Zhang,

Insect and Pesticide Research

Significance Old World (sub)tropical fungus-growing termites owe their massive ecological footprints to an advanced symbiosis with Termitomyces fungi. They also have abundant gut bacteria, but the complementarity roles of these symbionts have remained unclear. We analyzed the genomic potential for biomass decomposition in a farming termite, its fungal symbiont, and its bacterial gut communities. We found that plant biomass conversion is mostly a multistage complementary cooperation between Termitomyces and gut bacteria, with termite farmers primarily providing the gut compartments, foraging, and nest building. A mature queen had highly reduced gut microbial diversity for decomposition enzymes, suggesting she had an exclusively fungal diet even though she may have been the source of the gut microbes of the colony’s first workers and soldiers.