Diversity and abundance of entomopathogenic fungi at ant colonies

Angelone, Steven; Bidochka, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.jip.2018.07.009

Cited by 19 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…In nature, opportunistic entomopathogens such as Metarhizium or Beauveria fungi are ubiquitously found below and over the soil surface 57 . Terricolous ants like M. rubra are thus frequently exposed to conidia of Metarhizium fungus, both when staying inside their nest 58 and when foraging in the outside 59 . In this context, a systematic avoidance of fungal parasites would be unsustainable for M. rubra colonies because it would drastically reduce the number of biotopes as well as the size of the ecological niche still available for nesting or foraging.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fungus infected environment does not alter the behaviour of foraging ants

Pereira

Willeput

Detrain

2021

Sci Rep

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Eusocial insects are exposed to a wide range of pathogens while foraging outside their nest. We know that opportunistic scavenging ants are able to assess the sanitary state of food and to discriminate a prey which died from infection by the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium brunneum. Here, we investigate whether a contamination of the environment can also influence the behaviour of foragers, both at the individual and collective level. In a Y-maze, Myrmica rubra ants had the choice to forage on two prey patches, one of which containing sporulating items. Unexpectedly, the nearby presence of sporulating bodies did not deter foragers nor prevent them from retrieving palatable prey. Ant colonies exploited both prey patches equally, without further mortality resulting from foraging on the contaminated area. Thus, a contamination of the environment did not prompt an active avoidance by foragers of which the activity depended primarily on the food characteristics. Generalist entomopathogenic fungi such as M. brunneum in the area around the nest appear more to be of a nuisance to ant foragers than a major selective force driving them to adopt avoidance strategies. We discuss the cost–benefit balance derived from the fine-tuning of strategies of pathogen avoidance in ants.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fungus infected environment does not alter the behaviour of foraging ants

Pereira

Willeput

Detrain

2021

Sci Rep

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“…S2 and table S1). To further test whether the ant network's overall topology does inhibit disease transmission, we developed a stochastic epidemiological model simulating the spread of a pathogen through the colony and parameterized it using experimental data on the transmission of conidiospores (hereafter "spores") of the fungus Metarhizium brunneum, a natural pathogen of L. niger ants (12,17,18). Our simulation model had high predictive power and outperformed simpler models in predicting the intensity and biological consequences of transmission across individuals ( Fig.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social network plasticity decreases disease transmission in a eusocial insect

Stroeymeyt

Grasse

Crespi

et al. 2018

Science

241

311

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Animal social networks are shaped by multiple selection pressures, including the need to ensure efficient communication and functioning while simultaneously limiting disease transmission. Social animals could potentially further reduce epidemic risk by altering their social networks in the presence of pathogens, yet there is currently no evidence for such pathogen-triggered responses. We tested this hypothesis experimentally in the antLasius nigerusing a combination of automated tracking, controlled pathogen exposure, transmission quantification, and temporally explicit simulations. Pathogen exposure induced behavioral changes in both exposed ants and their nestmates, which helped contain the disease by reinforcing key transmission-inhibitory properties of the colony’s contact network. This suggests that social network plasticity in response to pathogens is an effective strategy for mitigating the effects of disease in social groups.

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“…Evans (Evans, 1974) notes: "Fungal pathogens of ants and other arthropods have been regularly collected from Ghanaian cocoa farms (H.C. Evans, unpublished) but epizootics are of infrequent occurrence and disease is at an enzootic level". Many fungi have been isolated from in and around ant colonies (Baird et al, 2007;Reber & Chapuisat, 2012;Angelone & Bidochka, 2018) and from ant internal tissues (Woolfolk et al, 2016a), often for the purposes of identifying potential biocontrol agents, but these have not been accompanied by any observations of colony collapse due to disease. Indeed, in a long-term study monitoring colonies infected by the behaviorally-manipulating fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis in the field, Loreto et al (Loreto et al, 2014) note that all 17 surveyed colonies continued to function over the 20-month observational period despite chronic infection by a fungal disease.…”

Section: Fungi As Pathogens and Parasites Of Antsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This genus is incredibly cosmopolitan, infecting many species of insects (Vega & Blackwell, 2005), and it appears to be an important part of the soil microbial community. It was recently found to be common in soil around ant nests in Ontario, Canada (Angelone & Bidochka, 2018).…”

Section: Clavicipitaceae (Ascomycota: Order Hypocreales) [7 Records]mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathogens, parasites, and parasitoids of ants: a synthesis of parasite biodiversity and epidemiological traits

Quevillon

Hughes

2018

Preprint

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1.AbstractAnts are among the most ecologically successful organisms on Earth, with a global distribution and diverse nesting and foraging ecologies. Ants are also social organisms, living in crowded, dense colonies that can range up to millions of individuals. Understanding the ecological success of the ants requires understanding how they have mitigated one of the major costs of social living-infection by parasitic organisms. Additionally, the ecological diversity of ants suggests that they may themselves harbor a diverse, and largely unknown, assemblage of parasites. As a first step, we need to know the taxonomic and functional diversity of the parasitic organisms infecting ants. To that end, we provide a comprehensive review of the parasitic organisms infecting ants by collecting all extant records. We synthesize major patterns in parasite ecology by categorizing how parasites encounter their ant hosts, whether they require host death as a developmental necessity, and how they transmit to future hosts.We report 1,415 records of parasitic organisms infecting ants, the majority of which come from order Diptera (34.8%), phylum Fungi (25.6%), and order Hymenoptera (25.1%). Most parasitic organisms infecting ants are parasitoids (89.6%), requiring the death of their host as developmental necessity and most initially encounter their hosts in the extranidal environment (68.6%). Importantly, though most parasitic organisms infecting ants only need a single host to complete their life cycle (89.2%), the vast majority need to leave the nest before transmission to the next ant host can occur (88.3%), precluding ant-to-ant transmission within the nest. With respect to the host, we only found records for 9 out of 17 extant ant sub-families, and for 82 out of the currently recognized 334 ant genera. Though there is likely bias in the records reported, both host and parasite ecological traits and evolutionary histories underlie the pattern of ant-parasite association reported here. This work provides a foundation for future work that will begin to untangle the ecological drivers of ant-parasite relationships and the evolutionary implications thereof.

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Diversity and abundance of entomopathogenic fungi at ant colonies

Cited by 19 publications

References 10 publications

A fungus infected environment does not alter the behaviour of foraging ants

A fungus infected environment does not alter the behaviour of foraging ants

Social network plasticity decreases disease transmission in a eusocial insect

Pathogens, parasites, and parasitoids of ants: a synthesis of parasite biodiversity and epidemiological traits

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