{"id":5841,"date":"2017-09-21T14:42:18","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T18:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=5841"},"modified":"2017-09-21T14:42:18","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T18:42:18","slug":"a-gene-that-makes-ants-better-plant-bodyguards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/a-gene-that-makes-ants-better-plant-bodyguards\/","title":{"rendered":"A gene that makes ants better plant bodyguards "},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazonian ants\u00a0Allomerus octoarticulatus<\/em>\u00a0act as bodyguards, defending the\u00a0Cordia nodosa<\/em>\u00a0plant against herbivores\u2014such as grasshoppers\u2014in a mutualistic relationship. A recent study pinpoints a genetic variation among\u00a0A. octoarticulatus\u00a0<\/em>that makes some of the ants\u00a0better\u00a0bodyguards: a certain foraging gene makes the ants better at discovering the grasshoppers attempting to feed on the plant. Researchers studied two ant colonies, one of which received a treatment modifying the “bodyguard-foraging gene.” Their results showed less herbivore damage on the plant and more ant attacks on grasshoppers in the treated colony. Study authors say these findings suggest a molecular basis for ant protection of plants in this classic plant-animal mutualism example.<\/p>\n

Authors:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pierre-Jean G. Mal\u00e9<\/span>,\u00a0Kyle M. Turner<\/span>,\u00a0Manjima Doha<\/span>,\u00a0Ina Anreiter<\/span>,\u00a0Aaron M. Allen<\/span>,\u00a0Marla B. Sokolowski<\/span>,\u00a0Megan E. Frederickson<\/span><\/p>\n

Corresponding author:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Megan Frederickson, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, ON, Email:\u00a0m.frederickson@utoronto.ca<\/a><\/p>\n

Original paper<\/a> published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B<\/em> on September 13, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazonian ants\u00a0Allomerus octoarticulatus\u00a0act as bodyguards, defending the\u00a0Cordia nodosa\u00a0plant against herbivores\u2014such as grasshoppers\u2014in a mutualistic relationship. A recent study pinpoints a genetic variation among\u00a0A. octoarticulatus\u00a0that makes some of the ants\u00a0better\u00a0bodyguards: a certain foraging gene makes the ants better at discovering the grasshoppers attempting to feed on the plant. Researchers studied two ant colonies, one of which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[3159,3160,2844,3161,3162],"class_list":["post-5841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-allomerus-octoarticulatus","tag-amazonian-ant","tag-ants","tag-grasshoper","tag-mutualism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-1wd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5842,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5841\/revisions\/5842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}