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Updated: Sep 8, 2025
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Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy
Published on: October 4, 2024
714
Host and Microbe Scale Processes Shape Spatial Variation in Aphaenogaster (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Genetics and
Daniel A Malagon1, Benjamin Camper1, Sophie Millard1
1Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, United States of America.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|August 20, 2025
Summary
Host-associated microbiota are influenced by selection and dispersal at both microbe and host scales. This study reveals how these multiscale factors shape ant genetics and their associated microbial communities.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Microbiology
- Evolutionary Biology
Background:
- Host-associated (HA) microbiota are shaped by environmental selection and dispersal, similar to free-living organisms.
- However, HA microbes face selection and dispersal at two scales: the microbe's scale and the host's scale.
- This dual-scale interaction influences microbial tolerance to both host and external environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how multiscale environmental selection and dispersal limitation impact the genetics and HA microbiota of ants in the *Aphaenogaster fulva-rudis-texana* complex.
- To determine the influence of host-scale processes on ant genetics and microbiota.
- To explore the interplay between host- and microbe-scale factors in shaping HA microbiota and ant genetics.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of spatial variation in *Aphaenogaster* genetics.
- Examination of spatial variation in *Aphaenogaster* microbiota.
- Assessment of host-scale environmental selection and dispersal limitation.
- Evaluation of microbe-scale environmental selection and dispersal limitation.
Main Results:
- Spatial variation in *Aphaenogaster* genetics is significantly shaped by host-scale environmental selection and dispersal limitation.
- Both host- and microbe-scale environmental selection influence spatial variation in *Aphaenogaster* microbiota.
- Microbe-scale dispersal limitation may also contribute to spatial variation in ant microbiota and genetics.
Conclusions:
- Multiscale processes, including host-scale and microbe-scale selection and dispersal, are critical in structuring HA microbiota.
- There are complex, bidirectional interactions between host- and microbe-scale processes affecting HA microbiota.
- Understanding these interactions is key to explaining spatial variation in HA microbiota and host genetics.
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