10.5061/DRYAD.34KH1
Brütsch, Timothée
University of Lausanne
Jaffuel, Geoffrey
University of Lausanne
University of Neuchâtel
Vallat, Armelle
University of Neuchâtel
Turlings, Ted C. J.
University of Neuchâtel
Chapuisat, Michel
University of Lausanne
Data from: Wood ants produce a potent antimicrobial agent by applying
formic acid on tree-collected resin
Dryad
dataset
2017
Formica paralugubris
2017-05-30T13:39:08Z
2017-05-30T13:39:08Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2834
68769 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Wood ants fight pathogens by incorporating tree resin with antimicrobial
properties into their nests. They also produce large quantities of formic
acid in their venom gland, which they readily spray to defend or disinfect
their nest. Mixing chemicals to produce powerful antibiotics is common
practice in human medicine, yet evidence for the use of such “defensive
cocktails” by animals remains scant. Here, we test the hypothesis that
wood ants enhance the antifungal activity of tree resin by treating it
with formic acid. In a series of experiments, we document that (i) tree
resin had much higher inhibitory activity against the common
entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium brunneum after having been in contact
with ants, while no such effect was detected for other nest materials;
(ii) wood ants applied significant amounts of endogenous formic and
succinic acid on resin and other nest materials; and (iii) the application
of synthetic formic acid greatly increased the antifungal activity of
resin, but had no such effect when applied to inert glass material.
Together, these results demonstrate that wood ants obtain an effective
protection against a detrimental microorganism by mixing endogenous and
plant-acquired chemical defenses. In conclusion, the ability to
synergistically combine antimicrobial substances of diverse origins is not
restricted to humans and may play an important role in insect societies.
all raw data from paperraw data used for all results in the
paperraw.data.resin.acids.xlsx