ArticleEcology letters2022
Early queen infection shapes developmental dynamics and induces long-term disease protection in incipient ant colonies.
Article in Ecology letters, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Trade-offs between immunity and competitive ability in fighting ant males.BMC ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Dynamic pathogen detection and social feedback shape collective hygiene in ants.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Group size rather than social status influences personal immune efficacy in a socially polymorphic bee.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Pathogen evasion of social immunity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Trans-generational immune priming against American Foulbrood does not affect the performance of honeybee colonies.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2023Article
- Early queen infection shapes developmental dynamics and induces long-term disease protection in incipient ant colonies.Ecology letters · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Infections early in life can have enduring effects on an organism's development and immunity. In this study, we show that this equally applies to developing 'superorganisms'--incipient social insect colonies. When we exposed newly mated Lasius niger ant queens to a low pathogen dose, their colonies grew more slowly than controls before winter, but reached similar sizes afterwards. Independent of exposure, queen hibernation survival improved when the ratio of pupae to workers was small. Queens that reared fewer pupae before worker emergence exhibited lower pathogen levels, indicating that high brood rearing efforts interfere with the ability of the queen's immune system to suppress pathogen proliferation. Early-life queen pathogen exposure also improved the immunocompetence of her worker offspring, as demonstrated by challenging the workers to the same pathogen a year later. Transgenerational transfer of the queen's pathogen experience to her workforce can hence durably reduce the disease susceptibility of the whole superorganism.
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