Publications des agents du Cirad

Cirad

African army ants at the forefront of virome surveillance in a remote tropical forest

Fritz M., Reggiardo B., Filloux D., Claude L., Fernandez E., Mahe F., Kraberger S., Custer J.M., Becquart P., Mebaley T.N., Kombila L.B., Lenguiya L.H., Boundenga L., Mombo I.M., Maganga G.D., Niama F.R., Koumba J.S., Ogliastro M., Yvon M., Martin D.P., Blanc S., Varsani A., Leroy E.M., Roumagnac P.. 2023. Peer Community Journal, 3 : 21 p..

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7708934

DOI: 10.24072/pcjournal.249

In 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.

Mots-clés : virus des végétaux; dorylus; virus des invertébrés; animal domestique; forêt tropicale; formicidae; invertébré; phylogénie; séquence nucléotidique; parvoviridae; écologie animale; domestication des plantes; gabon; france

Documents associés

Article (b-revue à comité de lecture)

Agents Cirad, auteurs de cette publication :