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DOI: 10.3852/07-055
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Mycologia, 101(2), 2009, pp. 206-210.
© 2009 by The Mycological Society of America

Free-living fungal symbionts (Lepiotaceae) of fungus-growing ants (Attini: Formicidae)


Tanya L. Vo

     Section of Integrative Biology, Patterson Laboratories, 1 University Station C0930, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712

Ulrich G. Mueller

     Section of Integrative Biology, Patterson Laboratories, 1 University Station C0930, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 2072, Balboa, Republic of Panama

Alexander S. Mikheyev 1

     Section of Integrative Biology, Patterson Laboratories, 1 University Station C0930, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712

Surveys of leucocoprinaceous fungi (Lepiotaceae, Agaricales, Basidiomycota) in the rain-forests of Panama and Brazil revealed several free-living counterparts of fungi cultivated by primitive attine ants (the lower Attini, Formicidae, Hymenoptera), adding to two such collections identified in a survey by Mueller et al (1998). The accumulated evidence supports the hypothesis that perhaps all fungi of lower attine ants have close free-living relatives. Free-living counterparts of ant-cultivated fungi are collected most readily during the early rainy season; in particular these are free-living mushrooms of fungal counterparts that are cultivated as yeasts in gardens of ants in the Cyphomyrmex rimosus group. Free-living and symbiotic fungi of these yeast-cultivating ant species might represent a promising study system to compare the biology of sympatric, conspecific fungi existing outside versus inside the attine symbiosis.

Key words: basidiocarp, coevolution, fungus gardening, mutualism, symbiosis

1 Corresponding author. Phone: 512-471-7619 Fax: 512-471-3878 E-mail: mikheyev{at}mail.utexas.edu






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Copyright © 2009 by The Mycological Society of America.