Ants Hold the Key to Sustainable Agriculture

The health of these plots, said Schultz, "might be a product of microbial consortia -- lots of different microbes that form an ecosystem that is better in one part of the garden than another." By moving these "microbial consortia," the ants create an environment in which their otherwise-precarious harvest can thrive. - WIRED.com

NVDL: This is so fascinating. It shows how Nature is still a far more intelligent the system (than say, the Internet), and human beings are just a product from this system. We still have a LOT to learn.

clipped from blog.wired.com Crop monocultures are bad. How, then, has the world's most successful herbivore thrived by exploiting a single cloned crop? That conundrum is posed by the leafcutter ant, which harvests more greenery than any other South American animal and uses the vast plantfall to feed the fungi gardens on which they subsist. At present, the land provides us with enough to eat -- but that might not last. Many agronomists say the clock is ticking on the bounties of the Green Revolution, which depended on fossil fuel-fueled pesticides and fertilizers, as well as soil-wearying techniques and the establishment of vast monocultures. Ants have farmed for million of years, said Schultz. "We've only been doing it for ten thousand. We're pretty rudimentary."