Symbiotic solutions for colony nutrition: Conserved nitrogen recycling within the bacterial pouch of <i>Tetraponera</i> ants.

ABSTRACT: While microbial symbioses are fundamental to the nutrition of many animal groups, current paradigms focus on symbiont functions at the host individual level. It remains unclear whether microbial symbioses can sustain colony-level fitness in social insects, whose ecological success depends on nutrient coordination across castes. Here, we investigate the specialized bacterial pouch, a symbiont-containing organ present exclusively in adult workers of Tetraponera nigra-group ants, revealing its crucial role in colony-wide nutrient provisioning. Using a combination of microscopy, amplicon and metagenomic sequencing, and ¹⁵N-urea feeding experiments on four species in the group, we show that its adult-specific pouch-associated microbiota, primarily Tokpelaia, recycle nit

SUBMITTER: Ma M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12595465 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature