Specialized Fungal Parasites and Opportunistic Fungi in Gardens of Attine Ants
Figure 3
Fungus garden fragments of leaf-cutting ants overgrown by filamentous fungi. (a) Atta texana garden fragment (TX, USA) with green tufts of Trichoderma sp. (b) Atta bisphaerica garden fragment (Botucatu, Brazil) with green conidiation of Trichoderma sp. Workers from (a) and (b) were manually removed and garden fragments were kept in wet chambers for 5 days at 25° C. (c) Isolation plate showing fungus garden fragment on potato dextrose agar medium supplemented with 150 μg·mL−1 of chloramphenicol. On the right note the white mycelia of the mutualistic fungus of attine ants and on the left the microfungus Aspergillus sp. Both fungi emerged from the garden fragment.
