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Science 17 January 2003:
Vol. 299. no. 5605, pp. 386 - 388
DOI: 10.1126/science.1078155
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Reports

Ancient Tripartite Coevolution in the Attine Ant-Microbe Symbiosis

Cameron R. Currie,1234* Bess Wong,3 Alison E. Stuart,1 Ted R. Schultz,5 Stephen A. Rehner,6 Ulrich G. Mueller,42 Gi-Ho Sung,7 Joseph W. Spatafora,7 Neil A. Straus3

The symbiosis between fungus-growing ants and the fungi they cultivate for food has been shaped by 50 million years of coevolution. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that this long coevolutionary history includes a third symbiont lineage: specialized microfungal parasites of the ants' fungus gardens. At ancient levels, the phylogenies of the three symbionts are perfectly congruent, revealing that the ant-microbe symbiosis is the product of tripartite coevolution between the farming ants, their cultivars, and the garden parasites. At recent phylogenetic levels, coevolution has been punctuated by occasional host-switching by the parasite, thus intensifying continuous coadaptation between symbionts in a tripartite arms race.

1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA.
2 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 2072, Balboa, Republic of Panama.
3 Department of Botany, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B2, Canada.
4 Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
5 National Museum of Natural History, MRC 188, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA.
6 Insect Biocontrol Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Building 011A, BARC-W, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA.
7 Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ccurrie{at}ku.edu

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