iScience
Volume 25, Issue 10, 21 October 2022, 105261
Journal home page for iScience

Article
Combined –omics framework reveals how ant symbionts benefit the Neotropical ant-plant Tococa quadrialata at different levels

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.105261Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • We examine the phytochemistry and transcriptome in myrmecophytic Tococa plants

  • Ant-colonization promotes Tococa growth by increasing nitrogen, amino acids, and sugar

  • Constitutively produced defensive ellagitannin levels increase in the absence of ants

  • Tococa responds to herbivory by phytohormone signaling and emission of HIPVs

Summary

Ant-plant defensive mutualism is a widely studied phenomenon, where ants protect their host plants (myrmecophytes) against herbivores in return for the provision of nesting sites and food. However, few studies addressed the influence of ant colonization and herbivory on the plant’s metabolism. We chose the Amazonian plant Tococa quadrialata, living in association with Azteca cf. tonduzi ants for an ant-exclusion study to reveal the chemistry behind this symbiosis. We found that colonized plants did not only benefit from protection but also from increased amino acid and nitrogen content, enabling better performance even in an herbivore-free environment. In contrast, ant-deprived T. quadrialata plants accumulated more ellagitannins, a major class of constitutive defense compounds. Moreover, herbivory-induced jasmonate-mediated defense responses, including the upregulation of signaling and defense genes and the emission of volatiles irrespective of colonization status. Altogether, we show how ant-colonization can influence the general and defense-related metabolism and performance of myrmecophytes.

Subject area

Ecology
plant physiology
omics

Data and code availability

  • The RNA-Seq data generated in this study were deposited at NCBI SRA and are publicly available as of the date of publication. The accession number is listed in the key resources table.

  • The paper does not report original code.

  • Any additional information required to reanalyze the data reported in this paper is available from the lead contact upon request.

Cited by (0)

6

These authors contributed equally

7

Lead contact