You don't have the guts: a diverse set of fungi survive passage through Macrotermes bellicosus termite guts.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Monoculture farming poses significant disease challenges, but fungus-farming termites are able to successfully keep their monoculture crop free from contamination by other fungi. It has been hypothesised that obligate gut passage of all plant substrate used to manure the fungal symbiont is key to accomplish this. Here we refute this hypothesis in the fungus-farming termite species Macrotermes bellicosus.

Results

We first used ITS amplicon sequencing to show that plant substrate foraged on by termite workers harbour diverse fungal communities, which potentially could challenge the farming symbiosis. Subsequently, we cultivated fungi from dissected sections of termite guts to show that fungal diversity does not decrease during gut passage. Therefore, we investigated

SUBMITTER: Bos N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7724875 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature