期刊
SCIENCE
卷 326, 期 5956, 页码 1120-1123出版社
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1173036
关键词
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资金
- NSF [MCB-0731822, MCB-0702025, DEB-0747002]
- NIH [GM 18938]
- OTS
- U. S. Department of Energy's Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center [DE-FC02-07ER64494]
- U. S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service Current Research Information System [3655-41000-005-00D]
Bacteria-mediated acquisition of atmospheric N-2 serves as a critical source of nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems. Here we reveal that symbiotic nitrogen fixation facilitates the cultivation of specialized fungal crops by leaf-cutter ants. By using acetylene reduction and stable isotope experiments, we demonstrated that N-2 fixation occurred in the fungus gardens of eight leaf-cutter ant species and, further, that this fixed nitrogen was incorporated into ant biomass. Symbiotic N-2-fixing bacteria were consistently isolated from the fungus gardens of 80 leaf-cutter ant colonies collected in Argentina, Costa Rica, and Panama. The discovery of N-2 fixation within the leaf-cutter ant-microbe symbiosis reveals a previously unrecognized nitrogen source in neotropical ecosystems.
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