Ageing and somatic maintenance in social insects

Lucas, Eric R.; Keller, Laurent

doi:10.1016/j.cois.2014.09.009

Cited by 35 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Fecundity and longevity are positively correlated in facultatively polygynous Cardicondyla obscurior queens (Schrempf et al 2011). Insights can be gained through such studies on ants to address key problems in gerontology (Heinze and Schrempf 2008; Rueppell 2009; Parker 2010; Amdam 2011; Lucas and Keller 2014). However, little attention has been paid to the interplay of selection on worker- and colony-level traits related to aging.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Worker senescence and the sociobiology of aging in ants

Giraldo

Traniello

2014

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Senescence, the decline in physiological and behavioral function with increasing age, has been the focus of significant theoretical and empirical research in a broad array of animal taxa. Preeminent among invertebrate social models of aging are ants, a diverse and ecologically dominant clade of eusocial insects characterized by reproductive and sterile phenotypes. In this review, we critically examine selection for worker lifespan in ants and discuss the relationship between functional senescence, longevity, task performance, and colony fitness. We did not find strong or consistent support for the hypothesis that demographic senescence in ants is programmed, or its corollary prediction that workers that do not experience extrinsic mortality die at an age approximating their lifespan in nature. We present seven hypotheses concerning how selection could favor extended worker lifespan through its positive relationship to colony size and predict that large colony size, under some conditions, should confer multiple and significant fitness advantages. Fitness benefits derived from long worker lifespan could be mediated by increased resource acquisition, efficient division of labor, accuracy of collective decision-making, enhanced allomaternal care and colony defense, lower infection risk, and decreased energetic costs of workforce maintenance. We suggest future avenues of research to examine the evolution of worker lifespan and its relationship to colony fitness, and conclude that an innovative fusion of sociobiology, senescence theory, and mechanistic studies of aging can improve our understanding of the adaptive nature of worker lifespan in ants.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Worker senescence and the sociobiology of aging in ants

Giraldo

Traniello

2014

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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“…Additionally, as social insect colonies are generally composed of families, all colony members share the same genetic background and differences in longevity are caused by differences in gene expression. Studying the molecular underpinning of aging in social insects is an emerging field with groundbreaking research in the honey bee and some ants ( 6 – 14 ). For termites, which evolved sociality independently from social Hymenoptera (wasps, bees, and ants), we are aware of only a single study ( 15 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Longevity and transposon defense, the case of termite reproductives

Elsner

Meusemann

Korb

2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

123

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SignificanceSocial insects such as honey bees or termites are promising new models for aging research. In contrast to short-lived models like the fruit fly or mouse, the reproductives of an insect colony have exceptionally long lifespans. This offers important new avenues for gerontology, especially as mechanisms underlying aging are highly conserved among animals. We studied aging in a termite from the wild. Our results suggest that aging in this species, as in other animals, is related to the activity of transposable elements (TEs; also known as “jumping genes”). Yet reproductives seem to be protected by a process that normally silences TEs in the germline of animals. This suggests that natural selection used a mechanism from the germline to protect whole animals.

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“…The pattern is an evolved life-history trait, that is, the function of divergent rates of programmed death (senescence). One explanation is the disposable soma (caste) theory, which says that selection should favor colonies that reduce their investment in the maintenance of the caste (workers) exposed to higher rates of extrinsic mortality [6]. Data for a limited number of species suggest that successful swarm-founding queens outlive their workers by more than 10 to 1, compared to 2 to 1 for tropical independent founders [14].…”

Section: Adult Longevitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Swarm-Founding Wasps

Jeanne¹

2019

Encyclopedia of Social Insects

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Ageing and somatic maintenance in social insects

Cited by 35 publications

References 43 publications

Worker senescence and the sociobiology of aging in ants

Worker senescence and the sociobiology of aging in ants

Longevity and transposon defense, the case of termite reproductives

Swarm-Founding Wasps

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