Monday, January 24, 2011

Amoeba Farmers and Other Organisms That Grow Their Own Food

me fish are particularly picky eaters, and one species of damselfish (Stegastes nigricans) has been found to help their preferred food, the Polysiphonia alga, grow by weeding out competing species of algae. "Because this alga is highly susceptible to grazing and is competitively inferior to other algae, it survives only within the protective territories of this fish species, suggesting an obligate mutualism between damselfish and their cultivated alga," the authors of a 2010 study on the relationship concluded.

"Insects were farming way before humans," says Debra Brock, a graduate researcher at Rice University's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Ambrosia beetles cultivate their fungal food on trees. When they land on a tree, the beetles deposit spores of the ambrosia fungi, which helps to transform the tree's wood into nutrient-rich food that is eaten by the beetle offspring's larvae


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