RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 3D mapping of disease in ant societies reveals a strategy of a specialized parasite
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 003574
DO 10.1101/003574
A1 Raquel G. Loreto
A1 Simon L. Elliot
A1 Mayara L. R. Freitas
A1 Thairine M. Pereira
A1 David P. Hughes
YR 2014
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/03/27/003574.abstract
AB Despite the widely held position that the social insects have evolved effective ways to limit infectious disease spread, many pathogens and parasites do attack insect societies. Maintaining a disease-free nest environment is an important evolutionary feature, but since workers have to leave the nest to forage they are routinely exposed to disease. Here we show that despite effective social immunity, in which workers act collectively to reduce disease inside the nest, 100% of studied ant colonies of Camponotus rufipes in a Brazilian Rainforest were infected by the specialized fungal parasite Ophiocordyceps unilateralis s.l. Not only is disease present for all colonies but long-term dynamics over 20 months revealed disease is a permanent feature. Using 3D maps, we showed the parasite optimizes its transmission by controlling workers’ behavior to die on the doorstep of the colony, where susceptible foragers are predictable in time and space. Therefore, despite social immunity, specialized diseases of ants have evolved effective strategies to exploit insect societies.