Primitive agriculture in a social amoeba

Debra A. Brock (), Tracy E. Douglas, David C. Queller and Joan E. Strassmann
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Debra A. Brock: Rice University
Tracy E. Douglas: Rice University
David C. Queller: Rice University
Joan E. Strassmann: Rice University

Nature, 2011, vol. 469, issue 7330, 393-396

Abstract: First steps in farming The success of our species has been in part because of our use of agriculture, but it is not a uniquely human occupation. Some social insects — such as fungus-growing ants and ambrosia beetles — have developed quite sophisticated cultivation and harvesting routines. A more modest form of fungal husbandry has been adopted by marine snails, but it comes as something as a surprise to discover a primitive form of agriculture in the soil-dwelling social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, familiarly known as slime mould. About one-third of D. discoideum clones isolated from the wild refrain from consuming all the available bacteria at a site, instead incorporating them into their reproductive assemblages. This 'harvest' is carried by the spores during dispersal and serves to seed a new bacterial crop at their next location. The connection between farming and sociality — in humans, insects and these symbiotic microbes — may be more than a coincidence since the multigenerational benefits generated are enjoyed by already established kin groups.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1038/nature09668

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