Meanings
- uncountablebiologyA form of trophobiosis in which one creature carries another creature to another location to farm it (harvest food from it, often after feeding it) there.
Acropyga spp. ants show obligate trophophoresy with mealybugs, in which newly mated queens carry a mealybug with them when founding new colonies.
2007, M. J. Wade, “The co-evolutionary genetics of ecological communities”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Nature Reviews Genetics2 more examples
The mealybug-tending ant A. epedana is an obligate coccidiphile with trophophoretic queens. Trophophoresy is defined as the behavior of a foundress queen transporting a trophobiont on her mating flight for the establishment of a new mealybug "herd" in her new colony.
2002 December 28, “Natural History of the Mealybug-Tending Ant, Acropyga epedana, with Descriptions of the Male and Queen Castes”, in Transactions of the American Entomological Society, volume 128, number 4, page 367All insect fungus gardeners propagate their primary fungi as clonal monocultures within their nests and mostly across generations too (trophophoresy from parent to offspring in the ants and the beetles).
2007, P. H. W. Biedermann, Social behaviour in sib mating fungus farmers
Origin
From tropho- + phoresy. Coined by John S. LaPolla in 2002.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
trophophoresy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trophophoresy
“trophophoresy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trophophoresy. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “trophophoresy,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trophophoresy.
Source: trophophoresy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.