ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2002
The development of immunity in a social insect: evidence for the group facilitation of disease resistance.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 101 papers.
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Who cites it
101 citing papers in PubMed, 305 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spatially organized chemical defences shape microbial communities in honey bee colonies.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Uncovering the function of insulin receptor substrate in termites' immunity through active immunization.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2024Article
- SIR+ models: accounting for interaction-dependent disease susceptibility in the planning of public health interventions.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The Function of Termicin fromInsects · 2024Article
- An at-leg pellet and associated Penicillium sp. provide multiple protections to mealybugs.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Pervasive relaxed selection in termite genomes.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Assessment of bacterial communities ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Pathogen-Mediated Alterations of Insect Chemical Communication: From Pheromones to Behavior.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Social isolation shortens lifespan through oxidative stress in ants.Nature communications · 2023Article
- The effect of ergosterol on the allogrooming behavior of termites in response to the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae.Insect science · 2023Article
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- Termite-engineered microbial communities of termite nest structures: a new dimension to the extended phenotype.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2022Review
- Antimicrobial peptides with cell-penetrating activity as prophylactic and treatment drugs.Bioscience reports · 2022Review
- Bacteriota and Antibiotic Resistance in Spiders.Insects · 2022Article
- Short and long-term costs of inbreeding in the lifelong-partnership in a termite.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Effect of Comb Cell Width on the Activity of the Proteolytic System in the Hemolymph ofAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Sociality and disease: behavioral perspectives in ecological and evolutionary immunology.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2022Article
- Insights into insecticide-resistance mechanisms in invasive species: Challenges and control strategies.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Review
- A fungus infected environment does not alter the behaviour of foraging ants.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Movement, Encounter Rate, and Collective Behavior in Ant Colonies.Annals of the Entomological Society of America · 2021Article
41 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The extraordinary diversity and ecological success of the social insects has been attributed to their ability to cope with the rich and often infectious microbial community inhabiting their nests and feeding sites. Mechanisms of disease control used by eusocial species include antibiotic glandular secretions, mutual grooming, removal of diseased individuals from the nest, and the innate and adaptive immune responses of colony members. Here we demonstrate that after a challenge exposure to the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae, dampwood termites Zootermopsis angusticollis have higher survivorship when individuals develop immunity as group members. Furthermore, termites significantly improve their ability to resist infection when they are placed in contact with previously immunized nestmates. This "social transfer" of infection resistance, a previously unrecognized mechanism of disease control in the social insects, could explain how group living may improve the survivorship of colony members despite the increased risks of pathogen transmission that can accompany sociality.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.