ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Ant behaviour and brain gene expression of defending hosts depend on the ecological success of the intruding social parasite.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genomic Signatures of Selection Across Climate Gradients and a Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution in an Ant Social Parasite-Host System.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
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- Genome assembly of the temporary socially parasitic spiny ant Polyrhachis lamellidens and its host Camponotus japonicus.DNA research : an international journal for rapid publication of reports on genes and genomes · 2025Article
- Beyond genes-for-behaviour: The potential for genomics to resolve long-standing questions in avian brood parasitism.Ecology and evolution · 2024Review
- Task-specific odorant receptor expression in worker antennae indicates that sensory filters regulate division of labor in ants.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Differential Gene Expression Correlates with Behavioural Polymorphism during Collective Behaviour in Cockroaches.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Mining Amphibian and Insect Transcriptomes for Antimicrobial Peptide Sequences with rAMPage.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Fungi of entomopathogenic potential in Chytridiomycota and Blastocladiomycota, and in fungal allies of the Oomycota and Microsporidia.IMA fungus · 2021Review
- In silico-driven analysis of thePeerJ · 2021Article
- Comparative analyses of caste, sex, and developmental stage-specific transcriptomes in twoEcology and evolution · 2020Article
- The coevolutionary biology of brood parasitism: a call for integration.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Defences against brood parasites from a social immunity perspective.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The geographical mosaic theory of coevolution predicts that species interactions vary between locales. Depending on who leads the coevolutionary arms race, the effectivity of parasite attack or host defence strategies will explain parasite prevalence. Here, we compare behaviour and brain transcriptomes of Temnothorax longispinosus ant workers when defending their nest against an invading social parasite, the slavemaking ant Temnothorax americanus. A full-factorial design allowed us to test whether behaviour and gene expression are linked to parasite pressure on host populations or to the ecological success of parasite populations. Albeit host defences had been shown before to covary with local parasite pressure, we found parasite success to be much more important. Our chemical and behavioural analyses revealed that parasites from high prevalence sites carry lower concentrations of recognition cues and are less often attacked by hosts. This link was further supported by gene expression analysis. Our study reveals that host-parasite interactions are strongly influenced by social parasite strategies, so that variation in parasite prevalence is determined by parasite traits rather than the efficacy of host defence. Gene functions associated with parasite success indicated strong neuronal responses in hosts, including long-term changes in gene regulation, indicating an enduring impact of parasites on host behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue 'The coevolutionary biology of brood parasitism: from mechanism to pattern'.
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