Highlights•Ants engage in symbiotic interactions with a diversity of microbes including
microbial eukaryotes, fungi, viruses, and bacteria.•Manipulation of host ant behaviors by …

Transmission is a crucial step in all pathogen life cycles. As such, certain species have
evolved complex traits that increase their chances to find and invade new hosts. Fungal …

Ant-infecting Ophiocordyceps fungi are globally distributed, host manipulating, specialist
parasites that drive aberrant behaviors in infected ants, at a lethal cost to the host. An …

Ants can display modified behaviors that represent the extended phenotypes of genes
expressed by parasites that infect them. In such cases, the modifications benefit the parasite …

The manipulation of animal behavior by parasitic organisms is one of the most complex
adaptations to have arisen via natural selection. Among the most impressive examples of …

Ophiocordyceps species infecting ants are globally distributed, with diversity concentrated in
the tropics and decreasing with increasing latitude. Among these myrmecophilous species …

Ophiocordyceps fungi manipulate the behaviour of their ant hosts to produce a summit
disease phenotype, thereby establishing infected ant cadavers onto vegetation at elevated …

There are numerous examples of parasites that manipulate the behavior of the hosts that
they infect. One such host–pathogen relationship occurs between the 'zombie-ant fungus' …

Parasite manipulation of host behavior, as an effective strategy to establish transmission,
has evolved multiple times across taxa, including fungi. Major strides have been made to …

Specialized parasites can modify host behavior to benefit transmission and reproduction.
Such behavior is considered an extended phenotype of the parasite. The interactions …