FIGURE 3.

(A) Survival of Acromyrmex subterraneus subterraneus leaf-cutting ant queenright colonies (blue line), queenless colonies (black line) and fungus gardens (red line) exposed to fungal treatments: conidial suspension of the fungi Escovopsis moelleri; Escovopsioides nivea; Trichoderma longibrachiatum; blank control (0.01% Tween 80^® solution + saline solution - NaCl 0.85%). Each treatment was replicated three times (combination of a fungus treatment + a colony complexity level). Survival was checked every day from the day of inoculation with fungal treatments (Day 0) until 118 days post-inoculation. The fungus gardens were considered dead when they were completely covered by other fungi and presented a dry texture. We considered the queenright colonies and queenless colonies dead when they did not contain any live ants. (B) Survival of Acromyrmex subterraneus subterraneus leaf-cutting queenless colonies exposed to Escovopsis moelleri; Escovopsioides nivea; Trichoderma longibrachiatum or blank control (0.01% Tween 80^® solution + saline solution – NaCl 0.85%). From the analyses comparing survival between the three complexity levels, we observed that only queenless colonies suffered variation in mortality over time (A). For this reason, we compared within this level the effect of each fungal treatment individually (B). There was no difference between queenless colonies inoculated with E. nivea, T. longibrachiatum and blank control (χ²_[1] = 1.868, P = 0.393). However, queenless colonies inoculated with E. moelleri treatment died faster (χ²_[1] = 9.582, P = 0.002). A survival analysis with a Weibull distribution was conducted and the models compared using χ² test (P < 0.05).