Dynamics and modeling of symbiotic fungus growth in ants

• Grant number: 12/10048-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2012
• End date: July 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Plant Health
• Principal Investigator: Wesley Augusto Conde Godoy
• Grantee: Juan Andrés de Domini
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Leaf-cutting ants use evolutionary strategies to ensure their own subsistence, especially the mutualism that involves the symbiotic fungus Leucocoprinus gongylophorus. It is by symbiosis with the fungus that ants are nourished and stimulated to foraging, searching for substrates to construct the fungus. This study has the aim of investigating symbiotic fungus growth by combining laboratory experiments and mathematical modeling. Growth patterns of symbiotic fungus will be investigated in the laboratory under controlled situations and parameters inherent to the growth will be estimated and combined with estimates from literature as subsidies for mathematical models.(AU)