5 research outputs found
Synthesis and self-assembly of amphiphilic semi-brush and dual brush block copolymers in solution and on surfaces
Homolysis/mesolysis of alkoxyamines activated by chemical oxidation and photochemical-triggered radical reactions at room temperature
Instantaneous and spontaneous room temperature C–ON bond mesolysis of alkoxyamines triggered by chemical oxidation
African army ants at the forefront of virome surveillance in a remote tropicalforest: A groundbreaking study using ants revealed a spectacular diversity of viruses in hardly accessible ecosystems like tropical forests
International audienceIn this study, we used a predator-enabled metagenomics strategy to sample the virome of a remote and difficult-to-access densely forested African tropical region. Specifically, we focused our study on the use of army ants of the genus Dorylus that are obligate collective foragers and group predators that attack and overwhelm a broad array of animal prey. Using 209 army ant samples collected from 29 colonies and the virion-associated nucleic acid-based metagenomics approach, we showed that a broad diversity of bacterial, plant, invertebrate and vertebrate viral sequences were accumulated by army ants: including sequences from 157 different viral genera in 56 viral families. This suggests that using predators and scavengers such as army ants to sample broad swathes of tropical forest viromes can shed light on the composition and the structure of viral populations of these complex and inaccessible ecosystems