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All over the world, parasitic fungi are turning ants into “zombies.”
The fungus looks like something out of a horror movie: The organism hijacks the body and mind of host ants, mentally controlling them to abandon their nest and climb a nearby tree.
There, the infected ant clamps its jaws around a leaf that hangs from the forest floor and dies a few days after the fungus digests it. The fungus explodes in its host’s body, then sends out a shower of spores to infect the next generation of ants.
Scientifically classified in the genus Ophiocordyceps, more than twenty species of zombie ant fungi live in the world, including Florida, Brazil and Japan; Scientists suspect that each of the dozen affected ant species has its own strain of Ophiocordyceps.
So far, scientists have uncovered the molecular mechanism of the parasitic interaction between fungi and ants that underlies behavioral manipulation, according to Study 2020. However, how these parasites operate systemically is not fully understood.
Scientists have now revealed that the fungi that attack the ants are infected with their own fungal parasites, which may help control zombie ants, according to a new study.
Dr. Joao Araujo, assistant curator of mycology at the New York Botanical Garden, has been scouring the rainforest for zombie ants for more than a decade. Over the years, he notices something strange: a mysterious white mushroom growing on top of the zombie ant’s mushroom.
Other scientists have been observing the mysterious fungus for decades, but Araujo and his colleagues set out to become the first scientists to systematically investigate the matter, focusing on a strain of zombie ants in Florida. Researchers described the physical composition of the mushrooms growing on top of the zombie ant mushroom and sequenced their DNA A study published Nov. 9 in the journal Persona.
In doing so, the team discovered two new genera of mushrooms previously unknown to science.
“We realized that there were two different strains of fungi, new strains of fungi, infecting a zombie ant fungus in Florida,” said Araujo, lead author of the study.
Each of the newly discovered mushrooms belongs to its own genus. One of the new fungi, Niveomyces cornatus, is responsible for the fuzzy white coating on the zombie ant mushroom – a component of its name (“niveo”) comes from the Latin for “snowy”. The second, new fungus, Torrubiellomyces zombiae, is harder to spot: The tiny black spots “look like fleas,” according to Araujo.
The fungus attacking the zombie ant fungus does not virilize its host, but instead feeds on its tissue and appears to harm it. “Every time we see these new genera that we’ve described growing on mushrooms, the mushroom looks so damaged, it’s really being eaten by this other mushroom,” Araujo said.
“In some cases, it first castrates Ophiocordyceps (the fungus that creates zombies) so it can no longer shoot spores, then grows and then consumes the entire fungus. Because Niveomyces and Torrubiellomyces are so new to science, it’s not yet known how much they affect zombie ant fungus populations as a whole.
These new genera are the first parasites officially described as infecting zombie ant fungus, but researchers suspect other species may be present. “I think it’s more common than you think. ‘Snooping is a very lucrative lifestyle,’ said the study’s lead author, Dr Charissa De Becker, an associate professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “It’s probably the most widespread lifestyle on the planet.”
He also says that parasites in general and parasitic fungi in particular have not been well studied. “The fact that we had to name two new genera tells you how little we know about this part of the wildlife tree,” de Becker said.
By furthering our understanding of the zombie ant fungus, the new research may have applications beyond the study of fungi, said Dr. Carolyn Elia, a postdoctoral fellow in organic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University. She did not participate in the study.
Over time, Ophiocordyceps has become a neuroscientist. He knows exactly which buttons to press and how to make the ant do what he wants. “By studying how we solve this problem, we can gain insight into our larger goal of trying to understand how the brain works or produces behavior.”
