6 ms·
Ants learned to farm fungi during a mass extinction
- ants_everywhere 2y agoAnts also farm aphids, so they may have beaten us to livestock farming too
- animal_spirits 2y agoI learned this fact from watching the documentary "The Queen of trees", quite fascinating! It blew my mind when I first saw it. The documentary is free on YouTube!
- codetrotter 2y agohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xy86ak2fQJM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xy86ak2fQJM This one?
- animal_spirits 2y agoThat's the one!
- interludead 2y agoThe Queen of Trees is an excellent documentary
- analog31 2y agoSeeing ants crawling up and down a tree is how I discovered that the tree was infested with aphids.
- interludead 2y agoObserving can be a helpful clue
- skirge 2y agoants save them through the winter and then spread them
- madaxe_again 2y agoThey also spelt barley. I’ve watched the sugar ants here with fascination as late every summer they gather vast quantities of barley corns, and then drag them below ground. A few weeks later they eject heaps of husks around the entrances to their nests, and on the one occasion I accidentally dug into one of their nests, it stank like a malthouse. I can only assume that their purpose is to convert the carbohydrates in the grain into sugars by encouraging the germination process, which they then live off through the winter. I can’t actually seem to find any documentation of the behaviour, but after seeing them do it for the five years we’ve lived here, I’m under the impression it’s no fluke.
- jeltz 2y agoAn article on another species doing this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5125654/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5125654/
- gwervc 2y agoNew conspiracy theory: ants developed Factorio to train us to their thinking and organization.
- qbxk 2y agoIt goes farther up the chain, it's actually the fungi's plan
- dr_dshiv 2y agohttps://www.amazon.com/Journey-Ants-Story-Scientific-Exploration/dp/0674485262 https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Ants-Story-Scientific-Explora... EO Wilson’s book on ants is a personal favorite. This also has guides on how to catch and cultivate.
- interludead 2y agoMy cousin has an ant farm. The book should be interesting for him.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- odyssey7 2y agoThey may yet learn to farm nutrition from plastic during a different mass extinction.
- interludead 2y agoSuch changes could be millions of years in the making
- baanist 2y agoI think it has already started¹. 1: https://neurosciencenews.com/microplastics-brain-health-27794/ https://neurosciencenews.com/microplastics-brain-health-2779...
- bamboozled 2y agoWhat does this have to do with ants evolving to eat plastic ?
- 1over137 2y agoMaybe he means the mass extinction has already started (due to plastic pollution).
- madaxe_again 2y agoEvolution, like geology, tends to happen in fits and starts - yes, it happens over very long timescales as a general phenomenon, but significant changes tend to happen in very short timescales, before then annealing over a population and finding equilibrium over a longer timescale. Take lactose tolerance in humans, for instance. That happened almost spontaneously in Northern European populations 6kYa, as it was such an advantageous trait for herdsmen, but then spread slowly - to the extent that it is still not a ubiquitous trait of sapiens. Many such examples, human and otherwise. I expect there are already plastic fixing bacteria out there, but they have not yet proliferated or optimised the trait. Should other food sources dwindle for whatever reason, this trait will become ubiquitous, rapidly, as competing populations die off.
- interludead 2y agoThe more I learn about ants, the more it seems to me that they are the ones who will take over the world. I'm starting to fear them.
- yannis 2y agoFear the cockroaches they stand a better chance
- philipswood 2y agoEarth: Human population: 8.2 billion humans. Ant population: 20 quadrillion ants. I'm not sure they need to take over the world - it looks like it is already theirs.
- Y_Y 2y agoBut what's their GDP?
- n_plus_1_acc 2y agoMaybe their life is better than ours because they don't sorry about number goes up.
- mrguyorama 2y agoTheir (individual ants) life is not better than ours, because they often die horribly for the greater good. Their (ants as a society) life IS better because they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the rest of their society, mostly unconditionally.
- kjs3 2y agoNo ant has ever raised a series A.
- Timwi 2y agoYet another science piece that perpetuates the misconception that “the mass extinction killed the dinosaurs”. The clade of dinosaurs is not extinct and it bothers me that science writers don't seem to learn this fact and keep getting it wrong.
- dartos 2y agoYet another comment saying someone is wrong with no context or links for the rest of us. :(
- imaginary_unit 2y agoBirds are part of the dinosaur clade and alive and well! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avialae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avialae
- Timwi 2y agoMy apologies. I will provide links next time. For now, my sibling comment will do the trick. Birds are dinosaurs, so dinosaurs are not extinct.
- sornaensis 2y ago'The extinction of non-Avian Dinosaurs' just doesn't roll off the tongue.
- blueflow 2y agoI get the "everyone knows what was meant" approach... but not everyone knows.
- lazide 2y agoWhat the general public considers dinosaurs has no overlap with the existing animals that scientists consider dinosaurs. While technically correct, it’s not useful nomenclature for public discussion.
- whoitwas 2y agoThis is awesome. We could do the same. Those oyster mushroom drones got me thinking. With fungus we could build perpetual motion machines to generate infinite energy or food. Just like the ants.
- whoitwas 2y agoI don't understand the downvotes. There's tech potential with fungus. We can see drones controlled by fungus: https://www.popsci.com/technology/fungus-robot/ https://www.popsci.com/technology/fungus-robot/ If they generate power in response to sunlight, we could organize the drones in a way to generate solar power with a turbine or something similar.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- adolph 2y agoMaybe due to "to generate infinite energy?" To the extent that you might mean "capture solar or other energy sources into more usable forms" I don't think you are necessarily wrong, but the phrasing does sound like "perpetual motion machine."
- whoitwas 2y agoI mean generate infinite energy with a perpetual motion machine. The drones power themselves once the mycelium forms connections. The idea is infinite energy generated by mushroom drones in organized movement.
- sumeruchat 2y agoI upvoted :)
- fifilura 2y agoI still remember this episode from the 80s when sir David Attenborough climbs into a termite mound up to 6 feet below the surface. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbbLCgh6sso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbbLCgh6sso These termites are fungus farmers and feed the gigantic queen with it. Unfortunately the fungus farming is not part of this clip, but it is also described the same program. Edit: This is an older version of sir David Attenborough, revisiting another mound and talking about fungus farming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGaT0B__2DM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGaT0B__2DM
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ohwellhere 2y agoThe termites built a heat sink for their colony! That's crazy.
- abecedarius 2y agoReminded of this: > David wondered if, rather than humans going extinct and letting the mushrooms take over, humans could eat the mushrooms and survive. That question led him and Joshua Pearce to research and write Feeding Everyone No Matter What https://allfed.info/about https://allfed.info/about
- teeray 2y agoIn the case of the zombie ants, the fungus farms the ants
- adolph 2y agoThe zombie qualifier might not be needed. The recent book "The Light Eaters" delves slightly into the theoretical frameworks that reverse the causality of agriculture. What does it mean for ants to "learn?" Did the fungi "teach" them? How did the fungi "learn" to "teach?" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196774338-the-light-eaters https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196774338-the-light-eate...