{"id":83819,"date":"2019-10-21T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T16:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=83819"},"modified":"2023-11-17T15:33:15","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T20:33:15","slug":"the-science-behind-zombie-ants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/the-science-behind-zombie-ants\/","title":{"rendered":"The Science Behind Zombie Ants"},"content":{"rendered":"

A zombie invasion is happening in Central Florida, but humans aren\u2019t the ones at risk. Rather, some of nature\u2019s tiniest creatures \u2014 carpenter ants \u2014 are the victims.<\/p>\n

Since 2016, biology Assistant Professor Charissa de Bekker has been studying zombie ants in UCF\u2019s Parasitic Behavior Manipulation Lab and the phenomenon that occurs when a fungal infection takes over the ants\u2019 brains, kills the insects and uses their bodies to grow more parasites.<\/p>\n

In a 2018 study, de Bekker and three co-authors from Pennsylvania State University found uninfected ants are unable to detect zombie ants within their nest since the fungus remains dormant at this time. Normal ants do not avoid or encourage the infected ants to leave, and in some cases they even share food until their final moments.<\/p>\n

De Bekker and her team of graduate and undergraduate students specifically study how Ophiocordyceps fungi turns the Camponotus floridanus species of carpenter ants into zombies. Parasites affect host behaviors in multiple ways, yet researchers do not understand how they are able to do this, de Bekker says.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning more about this will allow us to better understand [parasites\u2019] effects on their hosts, the ecosystems they are part of and also provide us with strategies to battle them,\u201d de Bekker says. \u201cThe zombie ants display one of the most pronounced behavioral manipulation and are therefore an excellent model.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Bekker\u2019s work not only contributes to the science of ants, parasites and hosts, but also has the potential to uncover more about the bioactive compounds of Ophiocordyceps fungi.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, fungi have an impressive track record of producing all kinds of compounds that are extensively used in medicine and industry,\u201d says de Bekker. \u201cThis group of fungi has hardly been studied, so in our quest to find how these fungi manipulate ants, we might find all kinds of interesting compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biology Assistant Professor Charissa de Bekker is working to figure out how a fungus is manipulating and killing ants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":83889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[488],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-83819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-biology"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Science Behind Zombie Ants and the Parasite Creating Them<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Biology Assistant Professor Charissa de Bekker is working to figure out how and why a fungus is killing and manipulating ants.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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