Composting in an ant-plant nest? Metabolic potential of bacterial communities for degrading chitin- and cellulose-rich substrates from ant-made patches

Beschreibung

Ant-plant associations have recently emerged from bipartite relationships to multi-
species networks involving many different organisms. One of the most widespread
associations in the Neotropics is the pioneer tree Cecropia spp. and its partner Azteca
spp. ants. Like in other tropical ant-plant mutualisms, fungi, bacteria, and nematodes
are typically found in domatia of Azteca ants, and especially abundant in ant-made
specialized structures named as “patches”. Since Azteca ant workers continuously
deposit cellulose- and chitin-rich substrates to the patches, we hypothesize that these
structures serve as nutrient recycling spots like an in-situ farming compost. In fact,
cellulose and chitin degradation activity was recently detected in patches from the
Azteca-Cecropia complex. However, which specific microbial taxa are contributing
to the decomposition of these compounds remains unknown. To investigate the
metabolic potential of patch microbial communities for degrading such biopolymers,
we analyzed short- and long-reads metagenomics data from patches of 10 Azteca ant
colonies. After combining different assembly methods, we obtained 200 bacterial
MAGs (>80% completeness, classes out of the 34 classes that were detected as relative-read abundant (> 0.1%
relative abundance) in the unassembled metagenomes. By identifying genes involved
in the degradation process of each biopolymer in these MAGs, we were able to
determine which bacterial taxa are potentially involved in nutrient transformation
in the ant-made patches. This study provides the baseline for future investigations
elucidating the potential roles and ecological relationships of bacterial communities
in this complex multipartite association, which will increase our understanding of the
potential nutrient recycling functions of patches in ant-plant nests.

Zeitraum	28 Juni 2023
Ereignistitel	Bageco Conference 2023
Veranstaltungstyp	Konferenz
Ort	Copenhagen, DänemarkAuf Karte anzeigen
Bekanntheitsgrad	International