Multiple virus infections occur in individual polygyne and monogyne Solenopsis invicta ants

Allen, Clare L.; Valles, Steven M.; Strong, C. A.

doi:10.1016/j.jip.2011.03.005

Cited by 19 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Monogyne and polygyne S. invicta colonies [62] serve as hosts for SINV-1 [63]. However, SINV-1 infections appear to be more prevalent among polygyne S. invicta colonies [64]. S. geminata, S. richteri, the S. invicta/S.…”

Section: Host Specificity Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive-Strand RNA Viruses Infecting the Red Imported Fire Ant,Solenopsis invicta

Valles

2012

Psyche: A Journal of Entomology

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The imported fire ants,Solenopsis invictaandS. richteriwere introduced into the USA between 1918 and 1945. Since that time, they have expanded their USA range to include some 138 million hectares. Their introduction has had significant economic consequences with costs associated with damage and control efforts estimated at 6 billion dollars annually in the USA. The general consensus of entomologists and myrmecologists is that permanent, sustainable control of these ants in the USA will likely depend on self-sustaining biological control agents. A metagenomics approach successfully resulted in discovery of three viruses infectingS. invicta.Solenopsis invicta virus 1(SINV-1), SINV-2, and SINV-3 are all positive, single-stranded RNA viruses and represent the first viral discoveries in any ant species. Molecular characterization, host relationships, and potential development and use of SINV-1, SINV-2, and SINV-3 as biopesticides are discussed.

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Section: Host Specificity Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive-Strand RNA Viruses Infecting the Red Imported Fire Ant,Solenopsis invicta

Valles

2012

Psyche: A Journal of Entomology

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“…There is little evidence that SINV-2 causes any observable host pathology and host specificity remains unknown (Valles, 2012). Allen and colleagues (Allen, Valles, & Strong, 2011) report finding co-infections of various combinations of SINV-1, SINV-2, and SINV-3 in individuals of Solenopsis invicta colonies, with polygyne colonies having a higher virus prevalence. It is unknown how having multiple infections impacts host morbidity and mortality, or how the presence of multiple viruses affects colony-level functioning.…”

Section: Single-strand Rna Viruses (Ssrna+)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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“…The horizontal transfer of transposons is likely to involve intermediate vectors such as viruses, parasites, or parasitoids, and intracellular symbiotic organisms . Because the infection rates for viruses and microsporidia are higher in polygynous colonies relative to monogynous ones , the horizontal transfer of transposons is more likely to occur in the former (which has Sb). Once inserted onto Sb, the new transposon might proliferate within the genome and spread within fire ants, at least in polygyne populations.…”

Section: What Are the Gene‐to‐phenotype Relationships In The Supergene?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Did the fire ant supergene evolve selfishly or socially?

Huang

Wang

2013

BioEssays

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The genetic basis for animal social organization is poorly understood. Fire ants provide one of the rare cases where variation in social organization has been demonstrated to be under genetic control, which amazingly, segregates as a single Mendelian locus. A recent genetic, genomic, and cytological analysis revealed that this locus actually consists of over 600 genes locked together in a supergene that possesses many characteristics of sex chromosomes. The fire ant social supergene also behaves selfishly, and an interesting evolutionary question is whether the genes incorporated first into the social supergene were those for social adaptation, selfish genetic drive, or something else. In depth, functional molecular genetic analysis in fire ants and comparative genomics in other closely related socially polymorphic species will be required to resolve this question.

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Multiple virus infections occur in individual polygyne and monogyne Solenopsis invicta ants

Cited by 19 publications

References 40 publications

Positive-Strand RNA Viruses Infecting the Red Imported Fire Ant,Solenopsis invicta

Positive-Strand RNA Viruses Infecting the Red Imported Fire Ant,Solenopsis invicta

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

Did the fire ant supergene evolve selfishly or socially?

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