Correction: Corrigendum: Fungus-growing ants use antibiotic-producing bacteria to control garden parasites (original) (raw)

Nature 398, 701–704 (1999).

We reported in this Letter that, on the basis of its cell-wall chemistry, the bacterium associated with the fungus-growing ant Acromyrmex octospinosus is in the genus Streptomyces (Streptomycetaceae: Actinomycetes). It has been brought to our attention by Nature that R. Wirth, T. Wagner, C. Kost, I. Böttcher, W.-R. Arendholz and M. Redenbach (manuscript submitted) do not find evidence of a specialized relationship between bacteria in the genus Streptomyces and fungus-growing ants in the genus Acromyrmex. Our ongoing molecular phylogenetic analyses reveal that the specialized symbiotic bacterium associated with Acromyrmex is not a species of Streptomyces, but is instead in the actinomycetous family Pseudonocardiaceae (C.R.C. and M. Cafaro, manuscript in preparation). This genus-level misidentification does not affect our other conclusions.

Authors

  1. C. R. Currie
  2. J. A. Scott
  3. R. C. Summerbell
  4. D. Malloch

Additional information

The online version of the original article can be found at 10.1038/19519

Rights and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Currie, C., Scott, J., Summerbell, R. et al. Correction: Corrigendum: Fungus-growing ants use antibiotic-producing bacteria to control garden parasites.Nature 423, 461 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01563

Download citation