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How do the leaf cutter ants and the fungus benefit from their relationship?
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Ants that eat fungus?
there are leafcutter ants!
Why do Leaf cutter ants eat fungus?
Because the ants need to eat
What is the relationship between the phorid fly and the leaf cutter ant?
Food source and pest protection describe the respective ways that leaf cutter ants and fungi benefit from their relationship. The relationship gets called mutualism because the interaction does no harm to either party. Leaf cutter ants inoculate leaves with fungi before colony meals and supply bacteria from their skins to protect the fungi from lethal pests.
What is the symbiotic relationship between Leaf-cutter Ants and Fungus?
It is a mutualistic relationship if both organisms benefit, commensalism if one benefits and the other gets nothing, and parasitic if one benefits and the other is harmed.
What is the symbiotic relationship between ant and fungus?
The relationship between fungi and ants mostly involve the ants actively cultivating the fungus in the same way a farmer cultivates crops. The fungus, in turn, provides nutrients for the ant colony.
Is a leaf cutter a carnivore?
Leaf cutter ants go out to collect pieces of leaves that they cut off, then take what they have collected back to the nest. In the nest special worker ants prepare the leaf to grow a special fungus that grows into little lumps that the ants feed on. So you can see that what the ants eat is not flesh, but bits of fungus that they grow, much as humans grow mushrooms for food. So we say that they are not carnivores, but fungivorous or mycophagous, two words that mean the same thing: "fungus-eating".
What do leaf cutter ants farm?
Leaf cutter ants live in subterranean colonies, where they have chambers that contain their fungus gardens. They forage above ground to cut leaves to bring back to the colony to cultivate more fungus. These ants are native to Central and South America but there are some species that can be found as far North as Texas in the United States.
Do leaf-cutter ants eat leafs?
Most people think that Leaf-Cutter Ants eat, well, LEAVES, but, that is wrong. As their name suggests, they DO cut leaves, but when they get to the colony, they grind the leaves to a pulp and use it as a natural fertilizer for the FUNGUS that they eat.
do leaf cutter ants save the leaves to eat later in the day?
No. They take the leaf cuttings back to the mound to feed a fungus that they then eat.
What kind of ants eat grass?
none, but there is a type of ant which eats the fungus that grows on leves called the leaf cutter ant. they cut the leaves, drag them to a colony, do some stuff to it and grows fungus on it. they eat that fungus.
Do leaf - cutter ants eat leaves?
They don't actually eat the leaves - because they cannot digest the cellulose. Instead - they take the pieces of leaf back to their 'nest' - and use them to grow fungus on them. They then eat the fungus.
Is fungus good for ants?
Very good for leaf cutter ants. They bring cut leaves back to their nest, chew them into tiny pieces and use them as a substrate to grow fungi which they feed to their larvae and eat themselves.
