Effect of immune challenge on aggressive behaviour: how to fight two battles at once

Adamo, Shelley A.; Gomez-Juliano, Adriana; LeDue, Emily E.; Little, Shawna N.; Sullivan, Ken

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.04.018

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…This cost is likely to reflect the aggressiveness typically expressed among earwig males (Forslund, ; Weiß et al ., ), as high levels of aggressiveness are often known to trade off with immunocompetence (as shown in other insect species; e.g. Contreras‐Garduño et al ., ; Adamo et al ., ). Conversely, the absence of an effect of group‐living on survival after pathogen exposure may simply result from the lower activity of the infected males and/or their limited social interactions (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Survival after pathogen exposure in group‐living insects: don't forget the stress of social isolation!

Kohlmeier

Holländer

Meunier

2016

J of Evolutionary Biology

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A major cost of group-living is its inherent risk of pathogen infection. To limit this risk, many group-living animals have developed the capability to prophylactically boost their immune system in the presence of group members and/or to mount collective defences against pathogens. These two phenomena, called density-dependent prophylaxis and social immunity, respectively, are often used to explain why, in group-living species, individuals survive better in groups than in isolation. However, this survival difference may also reflect an alternative and often overlooked process: a cost of social isolation on individuals' capability to fight against infections. Here, we disentangled the effects of density-dependent prophylaxis, social immunity and stress of social isolation on the survival after pathogen exposure in group-living adults of the European earwig Forficula auricularia. By manipulating the presence of group members both before and after pathogen exposure, we demonstrated that the cost of being isolated after infection, but not the benefits of social immunity or density-dependent prophylaxis, explained the survival of females. Specifically, females kept constantly in groups or constantly isolated had higher survival rates than females that were first in groups and then isolated after infection. Our results also showed that this cost of social isolation was absent in males and that social isolation did not reduce the survival of noninfected individuals. Overall, this study gives a new perspective on the role of pathogens in social evolution, as it suggests that an apparently nonadaptive, personal immune process may promote the maintenance of group-living under pathogenic environments.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Survival after pathogen exposure in group‐living insects: don't forget the stress of social isolation!

Kohlmeier

Holländer

Meunier

2016

J of Evolutionary Biology

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“…Alternatively, squeezing by itself may have negatively influenced the worker's 'emotional state', as suggested to explain why vigorously shaking honeybee workers causes them to classify neutral stimuli as predicting punishment [46]. Small injuries and the associated immune challenge may direct resources from reproduction and dominance to the activation of the immune system [47,48] and may also affect aggressiveness [49]. In ants, injuries lead to temporarily decreased fecundity [50] and precocious foraging [51].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stress and early experience underlie dominance status and division of labour in a clonal insect

et al. 2018

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Cooperation and division of labour are fundamental in the 'major transitions' in evolution. While the factors regulating cell differentiation in multi-cellular organisms are quite well understood, we are just beginning to unveil the mechanisms underlying individual specialization in cooperative groups of animals. Clonal ants allow the study of which factors influence task allocation without confounding variation in genotype and morphology. Here, we subjected larvae and freshly hatched workers of the clonal ant to different rearing conditions and investigated how these manipulations affected division of labour among pairs of oppositely treated, same-aged clonemates. High rearing temperature, physical stress, injury and malnutrition increased the propensity of individuals to become subordinate foragers rather than dominant reproductives. This is reflected in changed gene regulation: early stages of division of labour were associated with different expression of genes involved in nutrient signalling pathways, metabolism and the phenotypic response to environmental stimuli. Many of these genes appear to be capable of responding to a broad range of stressors. They might link environmental stimuli to behavioural and phenotypic changes and could therefore be more broadly involved in caste differentiation in social insects. Our experiments also shed light on the causes of behavioural variation among genetically identical individuals.

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“…However, in the current experiment it is not possible to disentangle the effect of an adaptive sickness behaviour from the direct effect of pathology caused by replicating DCV. Regardless of the underlying cause of reduced activity, it is likely to come at an additional cost of lower involvement in fitness-enhancing activities such as foraging, competing for resources with conspecifics, or courtship and mating (Adelman & Martin, 2009;Adamo et al, 2015;Vale & Jardine, 2016). Further, reduced activity following infection can also reduce the potential for disease spread (Lopes et al, 2016).…”

Section: Systemically Infected Flies Show a Dose-dependent Decline Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costs and benefits of sublethal Drosophila C virus infection

Gupta

Stewart

Rund

et al. 2017

J of Evolutionary Biology

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Viruses are major evolutionary drivers of insect immune systems. Much of our knowledge of insect immune responses derives from experimental infections using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Most experiments, however, employ lethal pathogen doses through septic injury, frequently overwhelming host physiology. While this approach has revealed several immune mechanisms, it is less informative about the fitness costs hosts may experience during infection in the wild. Using both systemic and oral infection routes, we find that even apparently benign, sublethal infections with the horizontally transmitted Drosophila C virus (DCV) can cause significant physiological and behavioural morbidity that is relevant for host fitness. We describe DCV-induced effects on fly reproductive output, digestive health and locomotor activity, and we find that viral morbidity varies according to the concentration of pathogen inoculum, host genetic background and sex. Notably, sublethal DCV infection resulted in a significant increase in fly reproduction, but this effect depended on host genotype. We discuss the relevance of sublethal morbidity for Drosophila ecology and evolution, and more broadly, we remark on the implications of deleterious and beneficial infections for the evolution of insect immunity.

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Effect of immune challenge on aggressive behaviour: how to fight two battles at once

Cited by 14 publications

References 54 publications

Survival after pathogen exposure in group‐living insects: don't forget the stress of social isolation!

Survival after pathogen exposure in group‐living insects: don't forget the stress of social isolation!

Stress and early experience underlie dominance status and division of labour in a clonal insect

Costs and benefits of sublethal Drosophila C virus infection

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