Nutritional Symbiosis Between Ants and Their Symbiotic Microbes

Nutritional symbioses with microorganisms have profoundly shaped the evolutionary success of ants, enabling them to overcome dietary limitations and thrive across diverse ecological niches and trophic levels. These interactions are particularly crucial for ants with specialized diets, where microbial symbionts compensate for dietary imbalances by contributing to nitrogen metabolism, vitamin supplementation, and the catabolism of plant fibers and proteins. This review synthesizes recent advances in our understanding of ant-microbe symbioses, focusing on diversity, functional roles in host nutrition, and mechanisms of transmission of symbiotic microorganisms. Despite progress, most research has concentrated on a few ant genera, and further exploration of microbial roles in different ant morphs and life stages and across various ant species is needed. Expanding research to include a broader array of ant lineages and integrating genomic data with additional experimental data will provide deeper insights into the metabolic strategies that facilitate ant success across diverse ecological habitats.