Fungus-farming termites can protect their crop by confining weeds with fungistatic soil boluses

The symbiotic agriculture of fungus-farming termites can collapse if they
fail to prevent invading weeds. Previous studies suggest the role of
symbiotic fungistatic microbes in bringing about weed control. However,
how termites employ these microbes to suppress the fungal-weeds, without
affecting the fungal-cultivar, remains unknown. Here we show that the
fungus-farming termite, Odontotermes obesus, uses specific behaviors to
remove, isolate and suppress the growth of the fungal weed Pseudoxylaria,
by primarily encasing them with soil boluses containing fungistatic
microbes. These behaviors efficiently suppress the weed without affecting
the crop. This integration of specific behaviors with termite-derived
microbes appears to be the proximate mechanism of how microbes are
topically used by termites to confine the weed** while keeping the crop
unaffected.