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Immune defense in leaf-cutting ants: a cross-fostering approach

Armitage SAO, Broch JF, Marín HF, Nash DR, Boomsma JJ – 2011

To ameliorate the impact of disease, social insects combine individual innate immune defenses with collective social defenses. This implies that there are different levels of selection acting on investment in immunity, each with their own trade-offs. We present the results of a cross-fostering experiment designed to address the influences of genotype and social rearing environment upon individual and social immune defenses. We used a multiply mating leaf-cutting ant, enabling us to test for patriline effects within a colony, as well as cross-colony matriline effects. The worker's father influenced both individual innate immunity (constitutive antibacterial activity) and the size of the metapleural gland, which secretes antimicrobial compounds and functions in individual and social defense, indicating multiple mating could have important consequences for both defense types. However, the primarily social defense, a Pseudonocardia bacteria that helps to control pathogens in the ants' fungus garden, showed a significant colony of origin by rearing environment interaction, whereby ants that acquired the bacteria of a foster colony obtained a less abundant cover of bacteria: one explanation for this pattern would be co-adaptation between host colonies and their vertically transmitted mutualist. These results illustrate the complexity of the selection pressures that affect the expression of multilevel immune defenses.

Title
Immune defense in leaf-cutting ants: a cross-fostering approach
Author
Armitage SAO, Broch JF, Marín HF, Nash DR, Boomsma JJ
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Date
2011-06
Identifier
doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01241.x
Appeared in
Evolution, 65(6): 1791-1799
Language
eng
Type
Text
Rights
© 2011 The Author(s). Evolution© 2011 The Society for the Study of Evolution.