Data from: Distinctive fungal communities in an obligate African ant-plant mutualism

Three ant species nest obligately in the swollen-thorn domatia of the
African ant-plant Vachellia (Acacia) drepanolobium, a model system for the
study of ant-defence mutualisms and species coexistence. Here we report on
the characteristic fungal communities generated by these ant species in
their domatia. First, we describe behavioural differences between the ant
species when presented with a cultured fungal isolate in the laboratory.
Second, we use DNA metabarcoding to show that each ant species has a
distinctive fungal community in its domatia, and that these communities
remain characteristic of the ant species over two Kenyan sampling
locations separated by 190 km. Third, we find that DNA extracted from
female alates of Tetraponera penzigi and Crematogaster nigriceps contained
matches for most of the fungal metabarcodes from those ant species'
domatia, respectively. Fungal hyphae and other debris are also visible in
sections of these alates' infrabuccal pockets. Collectively, our
results indicate that domatium fungal communities are associated with the
ant species occupying the tree. To the best of our knowledge, this is the
first record of such ant-specific fungal community-level differences on
the same myrmecophytic host species. These differences may be shaped by
ant behaviour in the domatia, and by ants vectoring fungi when they
disperse to establish new colonies. The roles of the fungi with respect to
the ants and their host plant remain to be determined.