Experimentally increased group diversity improves disease resistance in an ant species

Reber, Anabelle; Castella, Grégoire; Christe, Philippe; Chapuisat, Michel

doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01177.x

Cited by 93 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Thus, the genetic diversity of the colony of origin of brood and carers had no strong influence on the individual pathogen resistance of cross-fostered workers challenged in isolation. It should be noted that, by isolating workers from one another immediately after the challenge, we focus on the effect of past social interactions and individual immunity on pathogen resistance, and so might miss effects of group genetic diversity owing to variation in therapeutic behaviour, such as pathogen detection and grooming [8,15,19].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two social forms differ from one another in a suite of traits, including queen body size, brood development time, colony size and genetic diversity [27 -29]. Workers from monogynous colonies are consistently larger [30], have higher bacterial growth inhibition activity [31] and lower mortality rates than workers from polygynous colonies [15]. Moreover, the survival of workers varies greatly across colonies, both in controls and when exposed to the entomopathogenic fungus B. bassiana [32].…”

Section: Materials and Methods (A) Study Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In many social organisms, including bees and ants, colonies of queens that have mated with multiple males tend to exhibit a higher degree of pathogen resistance [17,18]. Colonies headed by multiple queens also have higher genetic diversity, but the impact of queen number on pathogen resistance seems to vary across species [15,19,20]. The mechanisms by which colony genetic diversity improves pathogen resistance are not yet fully understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To avoid pseudo-replication, each data point in the correlation analyses corresponds to all adult workers from a given field colony, regardless of the rearing group identity. Finally, because workers from monogynous and polygynous colonies differ in overall survival [15] and genetic diversity in carers may affect the pathogen resistance of brood, we analysed whether the social origin of the eggs or of the carers influenced the individual pathogen resistance of the cross-fostered workers.…”

Section: (D) Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Colony-level traits such as social structure and genetic diversity may also play an important role in shaping individual as well as colony resistance [15,16]. In many social organisms, including bees and ants, colonies of queens that have mated with multiple males tend to exhibit a higher degree of pathogen resistance [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Foster carers influence brood pathogen resistance in ants

Purcell

Chapuisat

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Social organisms face a high risk of epidemics, and respond to this threat by combining efficient individual and collective defences against pathogens. An intriguing and little studied feature of social animals is that individual pathogen resistance may depend not only on genetic or maternal factors, but also on the social environment during development. Here, we used a cross-fostering experiment to investigate whether the pathogen resistance of individual ant workers was shaped by their own colony of origin or by the colony of origin of their carers. The origin of care-giving workers significantly influenced the ability of newly eclosed cross-fostered Formica selysi workers to resist the fungal entomopathogen Beauveria bassiana. In particular, carers that were more resistant to the fungal entomopathogen reared more resistant workers. This effect occurred in the absence of post-infection social interactions, such as trophallaxis and allogrooming. The colony of origin of eggs significantly influenced the survival of the resulting individuals in both control and pathogen treatments. There was no significant effect of the social organization (i.e. whether colonies contain a single or multiple queens) of the colony of origin of either carers or eggs. Our experiment reveals that social interactions during development play a central role in moulding the resistance of emerging workers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Materials and Methods (A) Study Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (D) Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Foster carers influence brood pathogen resistance in ants

Purcell

Chapuisat

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Alate susceptibility in ants

Frederickson

2014

Ecology and Evolution

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Pathogens are predicted to pose a particular threat to eusocial insects because infections can spread rapidly in colonies with high densities of closely related individuals. In ants, there are two major castes: workers and reproductives. Sterile workers receive no direct benefit from investing in immunity, but can gain indirect fitness benefits if their immunity aids the survival of their fertile siblings. Virgin reproductives (alates), on the other hand, may be able to increase their investment in reproduction, rather than in immunity, because of the protection they receive from workers. Thus, we expect colonies to have highly immune workers, but relatively more susceptible alates. We examined the survival of workers, gynes, and males of nine ant species collected in Peru and Canada when exposed to the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana. For the seven species in which treatment with B. bassiana increased ant mortality relative to controls, we found workers were significantly less susceptible compared with both alate sexes. Female and male alates did not differ significantly in their immunocompetence. Our results suggest that, as with other nonreproductive tasks in ant colonies like foraging and nest maintenance, workers have primary responsibility for colony immunity, allowing alates to specialize on reproduction. We highlight the importance of colony-level selection on individual immunity in ants and other eusocial organisms.

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Host–parasite genotypic interactions in the honey bee: the dynamics of diversity

Evison

Fazio

Chappell

et al. 2013

Ecology and Evolution

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Parasites are thought to be a major driving force shaping genetic variation in their host, and are suggested to be a significant reason for the maintenance of sexual reproduction. A leading hypothesis for the occurrence of multiple mating (polyandry) in social insects is that the genetic diversity generated within-colonies through this behavior promotes disease resistance. This benefit is likely to be particularly significant when colonies are exposed to multiple species and strains of parasites, but host–parasite genotypic interactions in social insects are little known. We investigated this using honey bees, which are naturally polyandrous and consequently produce genetically diverse colonies containing multiple genotypes (patrilines), and which are also known to host multiple strains of various parasite species. We found that host genotypes differed significantly in their resistance to different strains of the obligate fungal parasite that causes chalkbrood disease, while genotypic variation in resistance to the facultative fungal parasite that causes stonebrood disease was less pronounced. Our results show that genetic variation in disease resistance depends in part on the parasite genotype, as well as species, with the latter most likely relating to differences in parasite life history and host–parasite coevolution. Our results suggest that the selection pressure from genetically diverse parasites might be an important driving force in the evolution of polyandry, a mechanism that generates significant genetic diversity in social insects.

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Experimentally increased group diversity improves disease resistance in an ant species

Cited by 93 publications

References 52 publications

Foster carers influence brood pathogen resistance in ants

Foster carers influence brood pathogen resistance in ants

Alate susceptibility in ants

Host–parasite genotypic interactions in the honey bee: the dynamics of diversity

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