Bacterial farming by fungi

Soils are the largest reservoir of biodiversity on Earth. As ecosystems, they provide many essential “services” to all forms of life including the recycling of organic matter and nutrients or the degradation of pollutants. In soil, bacteria and fungi are by far the most abundant organisms and they are known to interact in myriad different ways. We are interested in a particular type of mutualistic interaction called “bacterial farming”. In bacterial farming fungal hyphae are first used as dispersal routes by bacteria to move across air pores (“fungal highways”), and in return the fungi consume dispersed bacteria as an alternative nutrient source in case of need. We are currently studying the chemical basis of this interaction, including the recognition mechanisms between different species of bacteria and fungi, the molecules involved in the “harvesting” of bacteria, and other physiological benefits derived from the interaction.