Evidence for collective medication in ants

Christe, Philippe; Oppliger, Anne; Bancalà, Francesco; Castella, Grégoire; Chapuisat, Michel

doi:10.1046/j.1461-0248.2003.00395.x

Cited by 141 publications

(135 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…This result was supported by the findings of Christe et al (2003) which explained that the high moisture content of nest facilitates development of an abundant and functionally specialized decomposer community with a large biomass concentrated at the lower trophic positions. The high moisture content with eventual high temperature also will favour the growth of heterotrophic microbes, which may be necessary for the development of "fungal garden" required as food and aid in the further breakdown of organic materials.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Stabilities of ant nests and their adjacent soils

Echezona¹,

Igwe²

2012

International Agrophysics

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A b s t r a c t. Nests habour ants and termites and protect them from harsh environmental conditions. The structural stabilities of nests were studied to ascertain their relative vulnerability to environmental stresses. Arboreal-ant nests were pried from different trees, while epigeous-termite nests were excavated from soil surface within the sample area. Soils without any visible sign of ant or termite activity were also sampled 6 m away from the nests as control. Laboratory analysis result showed that irrespective of the tree hosts, the aggregate stabilities of the ant nests were lower than those of the ground termite, with nests formed on Cola nitida significantly showing lower aggregate stability (19.7%) than other antnest structures. Clay dispersion ratio, moisture content, water stable aggregate class <0.25 mm and sand mass were each negatively correlated with aggregate stability, while water stable aggregate class1.00-0.50 mm gave a positive correlation. Nest structures were dominated more by water stable aggregate class >2.00 mm but path analysis demonstrated that water stable aggregate class <0.25 mm contributed most to the higher aggregate stability of the termite nest than the other nest. Nest aggregates had greater structural stability compared to the control soil. The higher structural stability of termite nests over other nest and soil was considered a better adaptive mechanism against body desiccation.K e y w o r d: structural stability, arboreal-ant nests, derived savanna, termite nests INTRODUCTIONWithin the tropics, the most abundant animals are the ants which belong to the order Hymenoptera in the family Formicidae, and the termite in the order Isoptera in the family Termitidae (Jouquet et al., 2002). Related findings for instance from Ghana and Nigeria showed that as many as 80% of the total number of individual insects found on cocoa are ants (Hölldobler and Wilson, 1990). This in addition to the original lifestyle as predators makes them major components of both the terrestrial and arboreal ecosystems.These soil macro-invertebrates (ants and termites) are regarded as ecosystem engineers (Jouquet et al., 2006). Termites are divided into either wood-dwelling or soil dwelling, but majority of the tropical termites are the soil dwellers that construct either above ground nests or dig underground galleries and are found mostly on dry areas. Wood dwelling termites do not create nests, but live in excavated galleries in the dry woods. Ants are responsible mainly for arboreal nests. They live mainly on live trees where they build nests with litter materials, soils and some decomposed organic materials on top of trees. The scholars stated that nests formed by the black ants, popularly known as carton nest, are formed by ants chewing up pieces of wood and mixing them with honeydew and a type of syrup very similar to those of wasps. Ants and termites are very vulnerable insects and require the protection of their bodies and colonies by improving the structural stability of their nests.Ants and termite...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Stabilities of ant nests and their adjacent soils

Echezona¹,

Igwe²

2012

International Agrophysics

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“…Wood ants (Formica paralugubris) incorporate pieces of solidified conifer resin into their nests. Resin inhibits growth of bacteria and fungi in nest material and protects the ants against harmful microorganisms (Christe et al 2003;Chapuisat et al 2007). However, by measuring immune response, the prophenoloxidase activity (part of the humoral innate immune response of insects) was very low and not affected by the presence of resin.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathogen-associated self-medication behavior in the honeybee Apis mellifera

Gherman

Denner

Bobiş

et al. 2014

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

100

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Honeybees, Apis mellifera, have several prophylactic disease defense strategies, including the foraging of antibiotic, antifungal, and antiviral compounds of plant products. Hence, honey and pollen contain many compounds that prevent fungal and bacterial growth and inhibit viral replication. Since these compounds are also fed to the larvae by nurse bees, they play a central role for colony health inside the hive. Here, we show that honeybee nurse bees, infected with the microsporidian gut parasite Nosema ceranae, show different preferences for various types of honeys in a simultaneous choice test. Infected workers preferred honeys with a higher antibiotic activity that reduced the microsporidian infection after the consumption of the honey. Since nurse bees feed not only the larvae but also other colony members, this behavior might be a highly adaptive form of therapeutic medication at both the individual and the colony level.

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“…Collective defences include sanitary behaviours that often involve the use of antimicrobials (either obtained from the environment [3,4], or self-produced [5,6] or produced by a symbiotic partner [7,8]). Very important sanitary behaviours are cleaning/grooming, whereby potentially infectious particles are removed from the body surface [9,10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies

Theis

Ugelvig

Marr

et al. 2015

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 14 to a theme issue 'The sociality-health -fitness nexus in animal societies'. To prevent epidemics, insect societies have evolved collective disease defences that are highly effective at curing exposed individuals and limiting disease transmission to healthy group members. Grooming is an important sanitary behaviour-either performed towards oneself (self-grooming) or towards others (allogrooming)-to remove infectious agents from the body surface of exposed individuals, but at the risk of disease contraction by the groomer. We use garden ants (Lasius neglectus) and the fungal pathogen Metarhizium as a model system to study how pathogen presence affects self-grooming and allogrooming between exposed and healthy individuals. We develop an epidemiological SIS model to explore how experimentally observed grooming patterns affect disease spread within the colony, thereby providing a direct link between the expression and direction of sanitary behaviours, and their effects on colony-level epidemiology. We find that fungus-exposed ants increase self-grooming, while simultaneously decreasing allogrooming. This behavioural modulation seems universally adaptive and is predicted to contain disease spread in a great variety of host-pathogen systems. In contrast, allogrooming directed towards pathogen-exposed individuals might both increase and decrease disease risk. Our model reveals that the effect of allogrooming depends on the balance between pathogen infectiousness and efficiency of social host defences, which are likely to vary across host-pathogen systems.

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Evidence for collective medication in ants

Cited by 141 publications

References 30 publications

Stabilities of ant nests and their adjacent soils

Stabilities of ant nests and their adjacent soils

Pathogen-associated self-medication behavior in the honeybee Apis mellifera

Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies

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