the scent markings. Gardening process First, foragers bring in to and drop leaf fragments on the nest's chamber floor. Workers that are usually slightly smaller clip these pieces into segments that are about across. Smaller ants then crush these fragments and mold them into damp pellets by adding fecal droplets and kneading them. They add the pellets into a larger pile of other prill. Smaller workers then pluck loose strands of fungus from dense patches and plant them on the surface of the freshly made pile. The smallest workers, the minim, move around and keep up the garden by delicately prodding the piles with their antennae, licking the surfaces, and plucking out the spores and hyphae of unwanted mold species. Nutrition Higher attine fungi grow gongylidia, which form clusters called staphylae. The staphylae are rich in carbohydrates and lipids. Though workers can also eat the hyphae of the fungi, which is richer in protein, they prefer staphylae and appear to live longer while eating them. Cellulose has been found to be poorly degraded and assimilated by fungus, if at all, meaning that the ants that eat the fungus do not get much energy from the cellulose in plants. Xylan, starch, maltose, sucrose, laminarin, and glycoside apparently play the important roles in ant nutrition. It is not known yet how ants can digest laminarin, but myrmecologists E.O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler hypothesize that fungal enzymes may occur in the ants' guts, as evidenced by the enzymes found in larval extract. In a laboratory experiment, only 5% of workers' energy needs were met by fungal staphylae, and the ants also feed on tree sap as they collect greens. Larvae seem to grow on all or nearly all fungus, whereas queens obtain their energy from the eggs nonqueen females lay and workers feed to them. Bacterial symbionts The actinomycete bacterium Pseudonocardia is acquired by pupae from the workers that care for them two days after pupae eclose for metamorphosis. Within 14 days, the ants are covered in the bacteria, where they are stored in crypts and cavities found in the exoskeletons. The bacteria produce small molecules that can prevent the growth of a specialized fungus garden pathogen. Attine ants have very specialized diets, which seem to reduce their microbiotic diversity. Impact of farming The scale of the farming done by fungus-farming ants can be compared to human's industrialized farming. A colony can "[defoliate]