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Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy
Published on: October 4, 2024
Army ants harbor a host-specific clade of Entomoplasmatales bacteria
Colin F Funaro1, Daniel J C Kronauer, Corrie S Moreau
1Drexel University, Department of Biology, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Abstract:
In this article, we describe the distributions of Entomoplasmatales bacteria across the ants, identifying a novel lineage of gut bacteria that is unique to the army ants. While our findings indicate that the Entomoplasmatales are not essential for growth or development, molecular analyses suggest that this relationship is host specific and potentially ancient. The documented trends add to a growing body of literature that hints at a diversity of undiscovered associations between ants and bacterial symbionts.
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