Army ants harbor a host-specific clade of Entomoplasmatales bacteria.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Funaro CF
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3019723 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Army ants harbor a host-specific clade of Entomoplasmatales bacteria.
Funaro Colin F CF Kronauer Daniel J C DJ Moreau Corrie S CS Goldman-Huertas Benjamin B Pierce Naomi E NE Russell Jacob A JA
Applied and environmental microbiology 20101112 1
In this article, we describe the distributions of Entomoplasmatales bacteria across the ants, identifying a novel lineage of gut bacteria that is unique to the army ants. While our findings indicate that the Entomoplasmatales are not essential for growth or development, molecular analyses suggest that this relationship is host specific and potentially ancient. The documented trends add to a growing body of literature that hints at a diversity of undiscovered associations between ants and bacteri ...[more]
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