Important note: fungal transplants

[Acromyrmexbob]

I am currently reading through a series of papers regarding compatibility of fungus between same species nests.
I seems that the reason why fungus can be freely transplanted between nests of the colonies I supply is because these are coming from island populations and the fungus is genetically very closely related. However on the South American mainland the situation is different and transplanted fungus between colonies is liable to be rejected. Ironically this has come to light because my son is in 2nd year biology at Oxford Uni and he has expressed an interest in doing his thesis on Leaf Cutters. One of the worlds leading Leaf Cutting Ant specialists is working there just now and it is his research I am reading about this. Will have implications on transplants next year when I bring back colonies of Leaf Cutting Ants from South America. Should be interesting. I will post the papers and more comments on this as I get them. Watch this space!!

[Acromyrmexbob]

Okay so basically Leaf Cutting ants eat the fruiting bodies of the fungus they cultivate. The fungal fruiting bodies have a chemical which passes through the ant and comes out in its fecal droppings which the ants use to fertilise and feed the garden. If there is an alien fungus from another colony, these fecal droppings will react and the ants then remove the droppings and the surrounding fungus from the nest as waste. This is how it is thought the fungus in a Leaf Cutting ant nest stops alien fungus from growing alongside it. When I mentioned that I routinely transplant fungus from colony to colony the author of these papers said he thought this was because I was using an island population and the fungus on Trinidad was closely related to each other that this was not a problem whereas the fungus on the South American mainland was diverse enough that fungus coming from another colony would be rejected. This has serious implications when keeping ants from the mainland.
It is also thought that if a colony goes for around 1 week with no fungus to eat then this chemical is gone and the colony will accept new fungus from any other colony.