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90 comments on Termite Power

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greenish on February 26, 2008 - 10:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

And carpenter ants make great use of that, with a symbiotic fungus instead of a symbiotic protozoan. We could too, betcha.

If the creepie-crawlies haven't stumbled upon a given biochemical solution over their gazillion-odd generations, it may be hard to do. We should look more closely.

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mdsolar on February 27, 2008 - 6:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I looked for this but couldn't find it. The do have a bacteria symbiot blochmannia floridanus. The thing I like about the mushrooms is that you can just do it and not worry about intellectual property. That is what I was teasing Robert about. And, you probably would not go broke. Lot's of work though.

Chris

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mdsolar on February 29, 2008 - 11:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Now I have it. Just had to recall back a bit. It is leaf cutter ant that cultivate fungus. http://www.zi.ku.dk/personal/drnash/atta/Pages/Leafcut.html

Since ants have a sweet tooth, perhaps these fungii produce more starch than protein and fiber.

This might work out better than mushrooms. But, it seems that the cycle is more complex that just producing
food:
http://www.asm.org/microbe/index.asp?bid=30329

Chris

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greenish on March 2, 2008 - 2:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Ah, good link Chris. Yes, I meant leaf-cutter ants but typed carpenter ants. One of the hazards of posting with too little sleep. I had been unaware of the complexity of the process involving specialized ant-poo enzymes though. There's no reason that evolution would select for simplicity per se, and moreover if it were simple to digest cellulose and produce net energy you'd expect a lot more organisms to have the ability as a fallback metabolic adjunct. Anything we find going on in ant and termite guts is likely to be complex or we'd see that it had evolved multiple times in different species. (Idle ponder - why is this only significantly seen in social insects - foraging efficiency and marginal EROEI?)

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mdsolar on March 2, 2008 - 4:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

That seems like a good question. How far can we get with the idea that what in social insects is called cultivation, is called parasitism in the loners? Some wasps are evolved to lay eggs in caterpillers. If they were more social they might raise the caterpillers? Perhaps it is just a matter of needing to devote constant attention so the social structure is required?

Chris

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90 comments on Termite Power

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