You have one of two relationships with leaf-cutter ants. First, you’re a nature-lover, visiting Costa Rica, as you always do, when it’s a little too cold at home. You’re enjoying the house you don’t ...

When looking for wildlife in Costa Rica, it’s easy to become fixated on the unusual mammals and vibrant birds, but one of the country’s most complex creatures lies underfoot. Living in massive ...

In Central America’s rain-drenched forests, leaf-cutting ants collect pieces of leaves on which they grow fungi for food. But the rain can hit hard, especially for a small ant. When leaf-cutting ants ...

No pigs or chickens yet. But the vast farms where leaf-cutter ants raise their fungal crops may harbor a crew of previously overlooked farmhands — nitrogen-fixing bacteria. At least eight species of ...

Leaf-cutter ant nests are biogeochemical hot spots where ants live and import vegetation to grow fungus. Metabolic activity and (in wet tropical forests) soil gas flux to the nest may result in high ...

New research shows that garbage piles produced by leaf-cutter ants emit significant amounts of nitrous oxide—a potent greenhouse gas. Chemical reactions within the organic waste piles produced by leaf ...

Tropical forests are one of the largest natural sources of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O), and a tiny insect may play a big role in how those emissions are spread out across the landscape.

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract Though tropical forest ecosystems are among the largest natural sources of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O), the spatial ...

Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities. Here's a new one to add to the list: the ant farmers, like their human counterparts, depend on nitrogen-fixing ...