Zombie ants to bioremediation: The world of entomopathogenic fungi

Ants will change agriculture. The Danish ecologist Joachim Offenberg is convinced of this. They eat pests and protect trees against fungi.

Zombie ants to bioremediation: The world of entomopathogenic fungi

Before the release of The Last of Us, most people had probably never heard of the fungus Cordyceps. In the tv show and the video game, Cordyceps takes control of people, turning them into zombies that spread the infection. In the real world, Cordyceps doesn’t infect humans, but it does infect ants, taking control of their minds and using them to spread the infection to their colony-mates. Cordyceps is part of a large group known as entomopathoge…