@isatu__1: 🐜 Leafcutter ants can strip as much as 17% of the leaf biomass from plants in their ecosystem and can clear entire trees in under a day. Next to ours, the leafcutter ant society is the most complex society on earth. They build nests that can contain thousands of rooms and cover up to 0.5 km2, a feat that is necessary since a mature colony can contain more than eight million individuals. But if they’re not eating the leaves that they carry home, what are they doing with them? Farming. Leafcutter ants use leaves as their fertilizer to grow their crop: fungus. _____ 🍃 They cultivate their fungal gardens by providing them with freshly cut leaves, protecting them from pests and molds, and clearing them of decayed material and garbage. In return, the fungus acts as a food source for the ants' larvae. The ants are so sensitive to the fungi’s needs that they can detect how they are responding to a certain food source and change accordingly. This symbiotic relationship also benefits from a bacterium that grows on the ants’ bodies and secretes antimicrobials, which the ants use to protect their fungi. _____ 🎥 courtesy of: @paulkaempf_macro #Science #nature #biology #leafcutterants #ants #formicidae #acromyrmexoctospinosus #cornus #timelapse #ant #macro #leaf #fungus #plant #plants
