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Casillas-Pérez B, Pull CD, Naiser F, Naderlinger E, Matas J, Cremer S. Early queen infection shapes developmental dynamics and induces long-term disease protection in incipient ant colonies. Ecol Lett 2021; 25:89-100. [PMID: 34725912 PMCID: PMC9298059 DOI: 10.1111/ele.13907] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2021] [Revised: 10/04/2021] [Accepted: 10/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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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Affiliation(s)
| | - Christopher D Pull
- IST Austria (Institute of Science and Technology Austria), Klosterneuburg, Austria
| | - Filip Naiser
- Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
| | | | - Jiri Matas
- Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
| | - Sylvia Cremer
- IST Austria (Institute of Science and Technology Austria), Klosterneuburg, Austria
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Seidenath D, Holzinger A, Kemnitz K, Langhof N, Lücker D, Opel T, Otti O, Feldhaar H. Individual vs. Combined Short-Term Effects of Soil Pollutants on Colony Founding in a Common Ant Species. FRONTIERS IN INSECT SCIENCE 2021; 1:761881. [PMID: 38468894 PMCID: PMC10926528 DOI: 10.3389/finsc.2021.761881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/20/2021] [Accepted: 10/11/2021] [Indexed: 03/13/2024]
Abstract
Insects are integral to terrestrial life and provide essential ecosystem functions such as pollination and nutrient cycling. Due to massive declines in insect biomass, abundance, or species richness in recent years, the focus has turned to find their causes. Anthropogenic pollution is among the main drivers of insect declines. Research addressing the effects of pollutants concentrates on aquatic insects and pollinators, despite the apparent risk of contaminated soils. Pollutants accumulating in the soil might pose a significant threat because concentrations tend to be high and different pollutants are present simultaneously. Here, we exposed queens of the black garden ant Lasius niger at the colony founding stage to different concentrations and combinations of pollutants (brake dust, soot, microplastic particles and fibers, manure) to determine dose-dependent effects and interactions between stressors. As proxies for colony founding success, we measured queen survival, the development time of the different life stages, the brood weight, and the number of offspring. Over the course of the experiment queen mortality was very low and similar across treatments. Only high manure concentrations affected the colony founding success. Eggs from queens exposed to high manure concentrations took longer to hatch, which resulted in a delayed emergence of workers. Also, fewer pupae and workers were raised by those queens. Brake dust, soot and plastic particles did not visibly affect colony founding success, neither as single nor as multiple stressors. The application of manure, however, affected colony founding in L. niger negatively underlining the issue of excessive manure application to our environment. Even though anthropogenic soil pollutants seem to have little short-term effects on ant colony founding, studies will have to elucidate potential long-term effects as a colony grows.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dimitri Seidenath
- Animal Population Ecology, Animal Ecology I, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Anja Holzinger
- Animal Population Ecology, Animal Ecology I, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Klara Kemnitz
- Animal Population Ecology, Animal Ecology I, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Nico Langhof
- Department of Ceramic Materials Engineering, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Darleen Lücker
- Animal Population Ecology, Animal Ecology I, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Thorsten Opel
- Department of Ceramic Materials Engineering, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Oliver Otti
- Animal Population Ecology, Animal Ecology I, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Heike Feldhaar
- Animal Population Ecology, Animal Ecology I, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
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Tragust S, Brinker P, Rossel N, Otti O. Balancing Life History Investment Decisions in Founding Ant Queens. Front Ecol Evol 2020. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2020.00076] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
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Bordoni A, Tatini I, Puente Romero C, Perito B, Turillazzi S, Dapporto L. No evidence of queen immunisation despite transgenerational immunisation in Crematogaster scutellaris ants. JOURNAL OF INSECT PHYSIOLOGY 2020; 120:103998. [PMID: 31843493 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2019.103998] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2019] [Revised: 12/11/2019] [Accepted: 12/11/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Like vertebrates, invertebrates evolved acquired immunity based on memory-like mechanisms, known as immunisation. Immunisation and its transmission among individuals are phylogenetically ancestral and conserved characters that have been reported in different insect orders. Physiological mechanisms are still largely unknown, and the high variability in responses in different host-parasite systems led to different conclusions. In social insect species, the complex organisation of colonies further complicates the interpretation of the immune responses. In ants, it has been shown that the expression of immunisation depends on species, caste and physiological status of individuals. In this study, we investigate the occurrence of immunisation in queens of Crematogaster scutellaris ants using the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae as elicitor. Foundation in C. scutellaris is claustral and monogynic, allowing us to test the existence of the phenomenon in two distinct physiological conditions, corresponding to the claustral and colonial phases of queens. Queens and foundresses challenged with heavy doses of the pathogen showed higher mortality if previously exposed to light doses, indicating the absence of immunisation in our experimental settings. On the other hand, evidence of the trans-generational immunisation in the same host-parasite system has been recently found, where workers produced by queens exposed to light doses of M. anisopliae survived longer than those belonging to the control group. These results indicate that foundresses exposed to M. anisopliae can elicit an increased resistance in the offspring without providing themselves with a similar increased immune response and that immunisation and trans-generational immunisation are uncoupled phenomena in this host-parasite system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adele Bordoni
- Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via madonna del piano 6, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Irene Tatini
- Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via madonna del piano 6, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Cristina Puente Romero
- Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via madonna del piano 6, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Brunella Perito
- Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via madonna del piano 6, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Stefano Turillazzi
- Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via madonna del piano 6, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Leonardo Dapporto
- Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via madonna del piano 6, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.
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Bordoni A, Dapporto L, Tatini I, Celli M, Bercigli M, Ressurrección Barrufet S, Perito B, Turillazzi S. Trans-generational immunization in the acrobat ant Crematogaster scutellaris. Biol Lett 2019; 14:rsbl.2017.0761. [PMID: 29669845 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0761] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2017] [Accepted: 03/27/2018] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Trans-generational immunization is defined as the transmission of an enhanced resistance to a pathogen from parents to offspring. By using the host-parasite system of the ant Crematogaster scutellaris and the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae, we describe this phenomenon for the first time in ants. We exposed four groups of hibernating queens to different treatments (i) a non-lethal dose of live conidiospores in Triton, (ii) a dose of heat-killed conidiospores in Triton, (iii) a control Triton solution, and (iv) a naive control. We exposed their first workers to a high dose of conidiospores and measured mortality rates. Workers produced by queens exposed to live conidiospores survived longer than those belonging to the other groups, while exposure to Triton and dead spores had no effect. Starved workers showed a significantly higher mortality. The treatments did not influence queen mortality, nor the number of offspring they produced at the emergence of the first worker, showing no evidence of immunization costs-at least for these parameters in the first year of colony development. We propose that trans-generational immunization represents an important component of social immunity that could affect colony success, particularly during the critical phase of claustral foundation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adele Bordoni
- Biology Department, Florence University, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Leonardo Dapporto
- Biology Department, Florence University, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Irene Tatini
- Biology Department, Florence University, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Martina Celli
- Biology Department, Florence University, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Manuel Bercigli
- Biology Department, Florence University, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | | | - Brunella Perito
- Biology Department, Florence University, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
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