An Insect Herbivore Microbiome with High Plant Biomass-Degrading Capacity

摘要: Herbivores can gain indirect access to recalcitrant carbon present in plant cell walls through symbiotic associations with lignocellulolytic microbes. A paradigmatic example is the leaf-cutter ant (Tribe: Attini), which uses fresh leaves cultivate a fungus for food specialized gardens. Using combination of sugar composition analyses, metagenomics, and whole-genome sequencing, we reveal that garden microbiome ants composed diverse community bacteria high biomass-degrading capacity. Comparison this microbiome's predicted carbohydrate-degrading enzyme profile other metagenomes shows closest similarity bovine rumen, indicating evolutionary convergence biomass degrading potential between two important herbivorous animals. Genomic physiological characterization dominant provides evidence their capacity degrade cellulose. Given recent interest cellulosic biofuels, understanding how large-scale rapid degradation occurs highly evolved insect herbivore particular relevance bioenergy.