How most life on Earth is dependent on fungi – including you. ![]() Can the wood-wide web really help trees talk to each other?.These organisms are often called fungus-growing ants, but I think ant-growing fungi could be a better term. This ball is the fungus, made up of what’s called the mycelium. If you watch the first episode of The Green Planet, you’ll notice the fungus looks like a big ball. The fungus is using the ants like trucks, to transport the enzymes from one part of the fungus to the place where the new plant material is located. This gets the fungal enzymes exactly where they need to be to break down the plants. The ants will bring new plant material into the nest, place it on the fungus and then poo on top. The ants eat these enzymes when they feed on the gongylidia, but they cannot digest them, so they are still active when the ants poo them out. With the leaf-cutter ant partnership, the fungus fills its gongylidia with enzymes. Usually, fungi need to release enzymes that let them break down plants to absorb the nutrients. The ants eat these gongylidia.īut the fungus also benefits from this relationship. Inside the gongylidia are fats and proteins, which are nutritious for the ants. The fungus grows specialised organs, which we call gongylidia. Well, the fungus takes some of the proteins, but it has developed this relationship with the leaf-cutter ants. Sir David Attenborough takes you into the surprising world of plants, trees and fungi in The Green Planet © BBC Studios But doesn’t the fungus need the protein? Why would it share? So they have their fungus help penetrate the cell, then the ants feed on the fungus. For the ants, they want those proteins, but it’s very hard for the insects to actually extract them. But there are specialised organisms, such as bacteria, that are designed to do that kind of work. It takes a lot of energy to get to the parts in the plants that we actually need – the nitrogen and proteins. Plants have this defence mechanism: an enormous cell wall around their cells to protect them from being eaten. It’s a long process to digest plant material, and you need lots of different bacteria to help you do it. But if you look at a cow – the perfect example of a herbivore – the intestine is about 24 metres long, and cows also have multiple stomachs. If you take a tiger – a carnivore – the length of its intestines is about six metres. Think about herbivores, carnivores and omnivores, and just look at, for example, the lengths of their intestines. Why don’t they just cut out the middleman and eat the leaves themselves?ĭigesting plant material is a difficult process, even for us humans. The leaf-cutter ants rely on their fungus for food. Evolutionary biologist Dr Pepijn Kooij speaks to Amy Barrett about this special relationship. This unlikely partnership starred in Sir David Attenborough’s new wildlife series The Green Planet, available now on BBC iPlayer. It relies on ants to bring it food in exchange for nutrients. Leaf-cutter ants: The insects that are farmed by fungiīeneath the rainforests of South America lives a fungus that consumes 50,000 leaves a day without ever coming to the surface.
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