ArticleDie Naturwissenschaften2016
Ants detect but do not discriminate diseased workers within their nest.
Article in Die Naturwissenschaften, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Genetic Basis of Cuticular Hydrocarbon Variation in the Desert AntEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Social immunity in a supercolonial invasive ant: Nest structure confers immune function.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- Vector Potential ofInsects · 2025Article
- Article
- Do They Know What They Are Doing? Cognitive Aspects of Rescue Behaviour Directed by Workers of the Red Wood AntLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Cross-talk between immunity and behavior: insights from entomopathogenic fungi and their insect hosts.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- Defensive behavior is linked to altered surface chemistry following infection in a termite society.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Injury shortens life expectancy in ants and affects some risk-related decisions of workers.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Behaviours indicating cannibalistic necrophagy in ants are modulated by the perception of pathogen infection level.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Prophylactic Avoidance of Hazardous Prey by the Ant HostInsects · 2020Article
- Multiple nest entrances alter foraging and information transfer in ants.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Pathogen avoidance and prey discrimination in ants.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Queens stay, workers leave: caste-specific responses to fatal infections in an ant.BMC evolutionary biology · 2018Article
- Termites shape their collective behavioural response based on stage of infection.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- The impact of the built environment on health behaviours and disease transmission in social systems.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Review
- Impact of soil contamination on the growth and shape of ant nests.Royal Society open science · 2018Article
- Ants avoid superinfections by performing risk-adjusted sanitary care.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies.eLife · 2018Article
- Within the fortress: A specialized parasite is not discriminated against in a social insect society.PloS one · 2018Article
- Ant-lepidopteran associations along African forest edges.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Social insects have evolved an array of individual and social behaviours that limit pathogen entrance and spread within the colony. The detection of ectoparasites or of fungal spores on a nestmate body triggers their removal by allogrooming and appears as a primary component of social prophylaxis. However, in the case of fungal infection, one may wonder whether ant workers are able to detect, discriminate and keep at bay diseased nestmates that have no spores over their cuticle but which constitute a latent sanitary risk due to post-mortem corpse sporulation. Here, we investigate the ability of Myrmica rubra workers to detect and discriminate a healthy from a diseased nestmate infected by the entomopathogen Metarhizium anisopliae. During dyadic encounters in a neutral location, workers were more aggressive towards isolated sick nestmates on the 3rd post-infection day. However, no such detection or discrimination of fungus-infected nestmates occurred in a social context inside the nest or at the nest entrance. Gatekeepers never actively rejected incoming diseased nestmates that rather spontaneously isolated themselves outside the nest. Our study reveals that ant workers may detect health-dependent cues and that their 'acceptance level' of sick nestmates is tunable depending on the social context. This raises questions about possible trade-offs between a social closure to pathogens and risks of erroneous rejection of healthy nestmates. Social isolation of moribund ants also appears as a widespread prophylactic strategy of social insects allowing them to reduce exposure to pathogens and to spare costs associated with the management of infected individuals.
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