Evolutionary and ecological parallels between ants and fungi

Despite their different fundamental organization, ant colonies and mycelia of fungi exhibit striking similarities in their social organization. Both are collectives of genetically related or identical semi-autonomous units, consisting respectively of discrete multicellular individuals and hyphae. There is a variety of parallels in their foraging and resource capture strategies, developmental versatility and division of labour, and in the interactions between non-self recognition phenomena resulting in sexual or parasitic invasion of foreign genes into the collective, or in rejection of non-self. These parallels lend a new perspective to the nutritional relationships and modes of communication between developmentally different phases in collective systems of interacting individual units. They also have important evolutionary implications for the origin and regulation of mechanisms of gene flow between different colonies or collectives, including a link between mechanisms underlying sex, parasitism and sympatric speciation.