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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Dating the fungus-growing termites' mutualism shows a mixture between ancient codiversification and recent symbiont dispersal across divergent hosts
Molecular Ecology, Volume 20, No. 12, Year 2011
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Description
The mutualistic symbiosis between fungus-growing termites and Termitomyces fungi originated in Africa and shows a moderate degree of interaction specificity. Here we estimate the age of the mutualism and test the hypothesis that the major splits have occurred simultaneously in the host and in the symbiont. We present a scenario where fungus-growing termites originated in the African rainforest just before the expansion of the savanna, about 31 Ma (19-49 Ma). Whereas rough age correspondence is observed for the four main clades of host and symbiont, the analysis reveals several recent events of host switching followed by dispersal of the symbiont throughout large areas and throughout different host genera. The most spectacular of these is a group of closely related fungi (the maximum age of which is estimated to be 2.4 Ma), shared between the divergent genera Microtermes, Ancistrotermes, Acanthotermes and Synacanthotermes (which diverged at least 16.7 Ma), and found throughout the African continent and on Madagascar. The lack of geographical differentiation of fungal symbionts shows that continuous exchange has occurred between regions and across host species. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Authors & Co-Authors
Nobre, Tânia
Unknown Affiliation
Koné, N'Golo Abdoulaye
Unknown Affiliation
Konaté, Souleymane
Unknown Affiliation
Linsenmair, Karl Eduard
Unknown Affiliation
Aanen, Duur K.
Unknown Affiliation
Statistics
Citations: 51
Authors: 5
Affiliations: 4
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05090.x
ISSN:
09621083
e-ISSN:
1365294X
Study Locations
Madagascar