Organisational immunity in social insects

Stroeymeyt, Nathalie; Casillas‐Pérez, Barbara; Cremer, Sylvia

doi:10.1016/j.cois.2014.09.001

Cited by 104 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Organizational immunity provides prophylactic protection to particularly valuable group members, such as the offspring or reproductive individuals, by means of reduced exposure risk. Additional modulation of these social interaction networks upon pathogen exposure can further strengthen this effect [2,12,[15][16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to hygienic measures, the social interaction networks of groups play an important role for disease dynamics, as they predict disease transmission routes within societies [11]. The fact that social interactions are often inherently heterogeneous across individuals, owing to societies being composed of different age or task groups, can lead to 'organizational immunity' ( [12][13][14], reviewed in [15]). Organizational immunity provides prophylactic protection to particularly valuable group members, such as the offspring or reproductive individuals, by means of reduced exposure risk.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Changes in the behaviour of infectious individuals, or their group members, are likely to be reflected in their social interaction network (though experimental confirmation is scarce, see [15]), as some connections may be intensified and others eliminated, for example through caretaking [19 -21] or isolation [22][23][24][25] of diseased individuals. Such behavioural modulations, in addition to the direction in which behaviours are performed, can strongly impact the routes of disease spread in the group, by affecting the risk of pathogen exposure and transmission of the disease.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

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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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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“…This review focuses on insects, because they exhibit the greatest diversity of social systems across animal taxa [3,4], including most of the eusocial species currently known, and because they represent a majority of the studies in which social immunity has been studied [7,15,22]. I begin by presenting different definitions of social immunity found in the literature and discuss their importance to study this phenomenon across social systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social immunity and the evolution of group living in insects

Meunier

2015

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

160

180

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One contribution of 14 to a theme issue 'The sociality-health -fitness nexus in animal societies'. The evolution of group living requires that individuals limit the inherent risks of parasite infection. To this end, group living insects have developed a unique capability of mounting collective anti-parasite defences, such as allogrooming and corpse removal from the nest. Over the last 20 years, this phenomenon (called social immunity) was mostly studied in eusocial insects, with results emphasizing its importance in derived social systems. However, the role of social immunity in the early evolution of group living remains unclear. Here, I investigate this topic by first presenting the definitions of social immunity and discussing their applications across social systems. I then provide an up-to-date appraisal of the collective and individual mechanisms of social immunity described in eusocial insects and show that they have counterparts in non-eusocial species and even solitary species. Finally, I review evidence demonstrating that the increased risks of parasite infection in group living species may both decrease and increase the level of personal immunity, and discuss how the expression of social immunity could drive these opposite effects. By highlighting similarities and differences of social immunity across social systems, this review emphasizes the potential importance of this phenomenon in the early evolution of the multiple forms of group living in insects.

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“…caste, age or task-groups) have been claimed to provide "organizational immunity" (Naug & Camazine, 2002;Naug, 2008). This immunity together with sanitary behaviour (e.g., hygienic behaviour), contribute to social immunity by limiting pathogen spread at the colony-level (reviewed by Cremer, Armitage, & Schmid-Hempel, 2007;Wilson-Rich et al, 2009;Stroeymeyt, Casillas Perez, & Cremer, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual precocity, temporal persistence, and task-specialization of hygienic bees from selected colonies of Apis mellifera

Lanzavecchia

Parreño

Liendo

et al. 2016

Journal of Apicultural Science

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A b s t r a c t Hygienic behaviour is a complex trait that gives Apis mellifera L. resistance against brood diseases. Variability in the expression of hygienic behaviour is evidenced at the colonylevel and is explained by the proportion and propensity of individual worker bees that engage in hygienic activities. We investigated the temporal performance and the dynamics of task-specialisation of individual bees over time, both in selected hygienic (H) and non-hygienic (NH) colonies. Then we evaluated the impact of these behavioural aspects on the colony performance. Bees that perform hygienic behaviour (hygienic bees) in our H colonies were more persistent in the hygienic activities throughout the days of the investigation. Such bees were more efficient in the removal of pin-killed brood than hygienic bees in the NH colonies. Hygienic bees in the H colonies were also specialist in the sub-tasks involved in the detection of odour stimulus from dead brood and continued to perform these activities throughout the days of the investigation (temporal persistence). Age-distribution of hygienic bees in the H colonies was asymmetrical, with a larger proportion of these bees performing hygienic activities early in life. At a colony-level, H showed higher efficiency compared to the NH colonies. The present results highlight the fact that individual behaviour may influence the collective dynamics of the hygienic behaviour in honeybee colonies. The results also note that the selection for highly hygienic colonies would result in changes in individual bees that improve the performance of the behaviour at the colony level. The relevance of task-partitioning and age-specialisation of hygienic bees on social immunity is discussed.

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Organisational immunity in social insects

Cited by 104 publications

References 71 publications

Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies

Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies

Social immunity and the evolution of group living in insects

Individual precocity, temporal persistence, and task-specialization of hygienic bees from selected colonies of Apis mellifera

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