Abstract
Fungus-growing attine ants rely on an obligatory nutritional mutualism with fungi. Most attine ant genera cultivate fungi in the basidiomycete tribe Leucocoprineae (Agaricales: Agaricaceae). Although fungal partners show high genetic diversity, only two fungal species cultivated by leaf-cutting ants were formerly described. This is partly due to the lack of sexual structures (basidiomata) which are rarely formed in ant colonies. Moreover, basidiomata from leucocoprinaceous fungi grown by lower attines have not been observed in field colonies, but only when induced in artificial media in the absence of the ants. Here, we obtained basidiomata growing on oatmeal agar from fungal cultivars of Mycocepurus goeldii and Mycetophylax morschi, two lower attine ant species found in different biomes in Brazil. Morphological and phylogenetic analyses allowed us to describe two new species, Leucocoprinus attinorum from M. goeldii and Lc. dunensis from M. morschi. The new descriptions are the first to set formal names for Leucocoprineae fungi cultivated by lower attines and highlight the importance of in vitro cultures as a tool to assess the largely hidden taxonomic diversity of mushroom species grown by these attines.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon request. Additional data is also available in the supplementary material.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Irina Jiménez Gómez and Julio Flavio Osti for assistance with fungal cultivar maintenance, Dr. Rafael Trevisan for reviewing the Latin names, and LABMOM – UEPG for allowing the use of its infrastructure for morphological analysis. We thank François Valade and the "Société Mycologique de France, Paris" for providing copies of old species descriptions of La. wichanskyi. We thank Maria Jesus Sutta Martiarena, Tatiane de Castro Pietrobon, and Nilson Satoru Nagamoto for assistance during fieldwork. We also thank Dr. Maria Alice Neves for her contribution to confirm microscopic features and Silvia Venturi for advice on the typification and the deposit process of collections at FLOR Herbarium.
Funding
The authors would like to thank “Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)” for financial support (grants #2017/12689-4 and #2019/03746-0 to AR) and for a scholarship (grant #2017/10631-9) to RBJ. The contribution to this paper by PK was possible thanks to the scholarship granted from the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES), in the scope of the Program CAPES-PrInt, process number 88887.310463/2018–00, Mobility numbers #88887.468939/2019-00 and #88887.571230/2020–00. The study was further supported by CAPES under Financial Code 001. AR thanks “Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)” for a fellowship (grant #305269/2018-6).
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SUV, AR, RBJ and QVM conceived and designed the research. Material collections were performed by AR, RBJ, QVM and SUV. Fungal cultivar isolation, maintenance and basidiomata formation were performed by RBJ, QVM and AR. DNA isolation was performed by RBJ and phylogenetic inferences were carried out by RBJ and PWK. Morphological investigations and species treatments were carried out by SUV. The first draft of the manuscript was written by SUV and AR, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Urrea-Valencia, S., Júnior, R.B., Kooij, P.W. et al. Unraveling fungal species cultivated by lower attine ants. Mycol Progress 22, 66 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-023-01912-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-023-01912-6