TY - JOUR AB - Social insects protect their colonies from infectious disease through collective defences that result in social immunity. In ants, workers first try to prevent infection of colony members. Here, we show that if this fails and a pathogen establishes an infection, ants employ an efficient multicomponent behaviour − "destructive disinfection" − to prevent further spread of disease through the colony. Ants specifically target infected pupae during the pathogen's non-contagious incubation period, relying on chemical 'sickness cues' emitted by pupae. They then remove the pupal cocoon, perforate its cuticle and administer antimicrobial poison, which enters the body and prevents pathogen replication from the inside out. Like the immune system of a body that specifically targets and eliminates infected cells, this social immunity measure sacrifices infected brood to stop the pathogen completing its lifecycle, thus protecting the rest of the colony. Hence, the same principles of disease defence apply at different levels of biological organisation. AU - Pull, Christopher AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Wiesenhofer, Florian AU - Grasse, Anna V AU - Tragust, Simon AU - Schmitt, Thomas AU - Brown, Mark AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 616 JF - eLife TI - Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies VL - 7 ER - TY - JOUR AB - To prevent epidemics, insect societies have evolved collective disease defences that are highly effective at curing exposed individuals and limiting disease transmission to healthy group members. Grooming is an important sanitary behaviour—either performed towards oneself (self-grooming) or towards others (allogrooming)—to remove infectious agents from the body surface of exposed individuals, but at the risk of disease contraction by the groomer. We use garden ants (Lasius neglectus) and the fungal pathogen Metarhizium as a model system to study how pathogen presence affects self-grooming and allogrooming between exposed and healthy individuals. We develop an epidemiological SIS model to explore how experimentally observed grooming patterns affect disease spread within the colony, thereby providing a direct link between the expression and direction of sanitary behaviours, and their effects on colony-level epidemiology. We find that fungus-exposed ants increase self-grooming, while simultaneously decreasing allogrooming. This behavioural modulation seems universally adaptive and is predicted to contain disease spread in a great variety of host–pathogen systems. In contrast, allogrooming directed towards pathogen-exposed individuals might both increase and decrease disease risk. Our model reveals that the effect of allogrooming depends on the balance between pathogen infectiousness and efficiency of social host defences, which are likely to vary across host–pathogen systems. AU - Theis, Fabian AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Marr, Carsten AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 1830 IS - 1669 JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences SN - 0962-8436 TI - Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies VL - 370 ER - TY - GEN AB - To prevent epidemics, insect societies have evolved collective disease defences that are highly effective at curing exposed individuals and limiting disease transmission to healthy group members. Grooming is an important sanitary behaviour—either performed towards oneself (self-grooming) or towards others (allogrooming)—to remove infectious agents from the body surface of exposed individuals, but at the risk of disease contraction by the groomer. We use garden ants (Lasius neglectus) and the fungal pathogen Metarhizium as a model system to study how pathogen presence affects self-grooming and allogrooming between exposed and healthy individuals. We develop an epidemiological SIS model to explore how experimentally observed grooming patterns affect disease spread within the colony, thereby providing a direct link between the expression and direction of sanitary behaviours, and their effects on colony-level epidemiology. We find that fungus-exposed ants increase self-grooming, while simultaneously decreasing allogrooming. This behavioural modulation seems universally adaptive and is predicted to contain disease spread in a great variety of host–pathogen systems. In contrast, allogrooming directed towards pathogen-exposed individuals might both increase and decrease disease risk. Our model reveals that the effect of allogrooming depends on the balance between pathogen infectiousness and efficiency of social host defences, which are likely to vary across host–pathogen systems. AU - Theis, Fabian AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Marr, Carsten AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 9721 TI - Data from: Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies ER - TY - GEN AB - Repeated pathogen exposure is a common threat in colonies of social insects, posing selection pressures on colony members to respond with improved disease-defense performance. We here tested whether experience gained by repeated tending of low-level fungus-exposed (Metarhizium robertsii) larvae may alter the performance of sanitary brood care in the clonal ant, Platythyrea punctata. We trained ants individually over nine consecutive trials to either sham-treated or fungus-exposed larvae. We then compared the larval grooming behavior of naive and trained ants and measured how effectively they removed infectious fungal conidiospores from the fungus-exposed larvae. We found that the ants changed the duration of larval grooming in response to both, larval treatment and their level of experience: (1) sham-treated larvae received longer grooming than the fungus-exposed larvae and (2) trained ants performed less self-grooming but longer larval grooming than naive ants, which was true for both, ants trained to fungus-exposed and also to sham-treated larvae. Ants that groomed the fungus-exposed larvae for longer periods removed a higher number of fungal conidiospores from the surface of the fungus-exposed larvae. As experienced ants performed longer larval grooming, they were more effective in fungal removal, thus making them better caretakers under pathogen attack of the colony. By studying this clonal ant, we can thus conclude that even in the absence of genetic variation between colony members, differences in experience levels of brood care may affect performance of sanitary brood care in social insects. AU - Westhus, Claudia AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Tourdot, Edouard AU - Heinze, Jürgen AU - Doums, Claudie AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 9742 TI - Data from: Increased grooming after repeated brood care provides sanitary benefits in a clonal ant ER - TY - JOUR AB - Repeated pathogen exposure is a common threat in colonies of social insects, posing selection pressures on colony members to respond with improved disease-defense performance. We here tested whether experience gained by repeated tending of low-level fungus-exposed (Metarhizium robertsii) larvae may alter the performance of sanitary brood care in the clonal ant, Platythyrea punctata. We trained ants individually over nine consecutive trials to either sham-treated or fungus-exposed larvae. We then compared the larval grooming behavior of naive and trained ants and measured how effectively they removed infectious fungal conidiospores from the fungus-exposed larvae. We found that the ants changed the duration of larval grooming in response to both, larval treatment and their level of experience: (1) sham-treated larvae received longer grooming than the fungus-exposed larvae and (2) trained ants performed less self-grooming but longer larval grooming than naive ants, which was true for both, ants trained to fungus-exposed and also to sham-treated larvae. Ants that groomed the fungus-exposed larvae for longer periods removed a higher number of fungal conidiospores from the surface of the fungus-exposed larvae. As experienced ants performed longer larval grooming, they were more effective in fungal removal, thus making them better caretakers under pathogen attack of the colony. By studying this clonal ant, we can thus conclude that even in the absence of genetic variation between colony members, differences in experience levels of brood care may affect performance of sanitary brood care in social insects. AU - Westhus, Claudia AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Tourdot, Edouard AU - Heinze, Jürgen AU - Doums, Claudie AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 2161 IS - 10 JF - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology SN - 0340-5443 TI - Increased grooming after repeated brood care provides sanitary benefits in a clonal ant VL - 68 ER - TY - GEN AB - Background: The brood of ants and other social insects is highly susceptible to pathogens, particularly those that penetrate the soft larval and pupal cuticle. We here test whether the presence of a pupal cocoon, which occurs in some ant species but not in others, affects the sanitary brood care and fungal infection patterns after exposure to the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium brunneum. We use a) a comparative approach analysing four species with either naked or cocooned pupae and b) a within-species analysis of a single ant species, in which both pupal types co-exist in the same colony. Results: We found that the presence of a cocoon did not compromise fungal pathogen detection by the ants and that species with cocooned pupae increased brood grooming after pathogen exposure. All tested ant species further removed brood from their nests, which was predominantly expressed towards larvae and naked pupae treated with the live fungal pathogen. In contrast, cocooned pupae exposed to live fungus were not removed at higher rates than cocooned pupae exposed to dead fungus or a sham control. Consistent with this, exposure to the live fungus caused high numbers of infections and fungal outgrowth in larvae and naked pupae, but not in cocooned pupae. Moreover, the ants consistently removed the brood prior to fungal outgrowth, ensuring a clean brood chamber. Conclusion: Our study suggests that the pupal cocoon has a protective effect against fungal infection, causing an adaptive change in sanitary behaviours by the ants. It further demonstrates that brood removal - originally described for honeybees as “hygienic behaviour” – is a widespread sanitary behaviour in ants, which likely has important implications on disease dynamics in social insect colonies. AU - Tragust, Simon AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Chapuisat, Michel AU - Heinze, Jürgen AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 9753 TI - Data from: Pupal cocoons affect sanitary brood care and limit fungal infections in ant colonies ER - TY - JOUR AB - Background: The brood of ants and other social insects is highly susceptible to pathogens, particularly those that penetrate the soft larval and pupal cuticle. We here test whether the presence of a pupal cocoon, which occurs in some ant species but not in others, affects the sanitary brood care and fungal infection patterns after exposure to the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium brunneum. We use a) a comparative approach analysing four species with either naked or cocooned pupae and b) a within-species analysis of a single ant species, in which both pupal types co-exist in the same colony. Results: We found that the presence of a cocoon did not compromise fungal pathogen detection by the ants and that species with cocooned pupae increased brood grooming after pathogen exposure. All tested ant species further removed brood from their nests, which was predominantly expressed towards larvae and naked pupae treated with the live fungal pathogen. In contrast, cocooned pupae exposed to live fungus were not removed at higher rates than cocooned pupae exposed to dead fungus or a sham control. Consistent with this, exposure to the live fungus caused high numbers of infections and fungal outgrowth in larvae and naked pupae, but not in cocooned pupae. Moreover, the ants consistently removed the brood prior to fungal outgrowth, ensuring a clean brood chamber. Conclusion: Our study suggests that the pupal cocoon has a protective effect against fungal infection, causing an adaptive change in sanitary behaviours by the ants. It further demonstrates that brood removal-originally described for honeybees as "hygienic behaviour"-is a widespread sanitary behaviour in ants, which likely has important implications on disease dynamics in social insect colonies. AU - Tragust, Simon AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Chapuisat, Michel AU - Heinze, Jürgen AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 2284 IS - 1 JF - BMC Evolutionary Biology TI - Pupal cocoons affect sanitary brood care and limit fungal infections in ant colonies VL - 13 ER - TY - JOUR AB - To fight infectious diseases, host immune defenses are employed at multiple levels. Sanitary behavior, such as pathogen avoidance and removal, acts as a first line of defense to prevent infection [1] before activation of the physiological immune system. Insect societies have evolved a wide range of collective hygiene measures and intensive health care toward pathogen-exposed group members [2]. One of the most common behaviors is allogrooming, in which nestmates remove infectious particles from the body surfaces of exposed individuals [3]. Here we show that, in invasive garden ants, grooming of fungus-exposed brood is effective beyond the sheer mechanical removal of fungal conidiospores; it also includes chemical disinfection through the application of poison produced by the ants themselves. Formic acid is the main active component of the poison. It inhibits fungal growth of conidiospores remaining on the brood surface after grooming and also those collected in the mouth of the grooming ant. This dual function is achieved by uptake of the poison droplet into the mouth through acidopore self-grooming and subsequent application onto the infectious brood via brood grooming. This extraordinary behavior extends the current understanding of grooming and the establishment of social immunity in insect societies. AU - Tragust, Simon AU - Mitteregger, Barbara AU - Barone, Vanessa AU - Konrad, Matthias AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 2926 IS - 1 JF - Current Biology TI - Ants disinfect fungus-exposed brood by oral uptake and spread of their poison VL - 23 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Social insects have a very high potential to become invasive pest species. Here, we explore how their social lifestyle and their interaction with parasites may contribute to this invasive success. Similar to solitary species, parasite release followed by the evolution of increased competitive ability can promote establishment of introduced social insect hosts in their introduced range. Genetic bottlenecks during introduction of low numbers of founder individuals decrease the genetic diversity at three levels: the population, the colony and the individual, with the colony level being specific to social insects. Reduced genetic diversity can affect both the individual immune system and the collective colony-level disease defences (social immunity). Still, the dual immune system is likely to make social insects more robust to parasite attack. Changes in social structure from small, family-based, territorially aggressive societies in native populations towards huge networks of cooperating nests (unicoloniality) occur in some invasive social insects, for example, most invasive ants and some termites. Unicoloniality is likely to affect disease dynamics in multiple ways. The free exchange of individuals within the population leads to an increased genetic heterogeneity among individuals of a single nest, thereby decreasing disease transmission. However, the multitude of reproductively active queens per colony buffers the effect of individual diseased queens and their offspring, which may result in a higher level of vertical disease transmission in unicolonial societies. Lastly, unicoloniality provides a competitive advantage over native species, allowing them to quickly become the dominant species in the habitat, which in turn selects for parasite adaptation to this common host genotype and thus eventually a high parasite pressure. Overall, invasions by insect societies are characterized by general features applying to all introduced species, as well as idiosyncrasies that emerge from their social lifestyle. It is important to study these effects in concert to be able to develop efficient management and biocontrol strategies. © 2012 British Ecological Society. AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 2938 IS - 6 JF - Functional Ecology TI - Effects of social immunity and unicoloniality on host parasite interactions in invasive insect societies VL - 26 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Dispersal is crucial for gene flow and often determines the long-term stability of meta-populations, particularly in rare species with specialized life cycles. Such species are often foci of conservation efforts because they suffer disproportionally from degradation and fragmentation of their habitat. However, detailed knowledge of effective gene flow through dispersal is often missing, so that conservation strategies have to be based on mark-recapture observations that are suspected to be poor predictors of long-distance dispersal. These constraints have been especially severe in the study of butterfly populations, where microsatellite markers have been difficult to develop. We used eight microsatellite markers to analyse genetic population structure of the Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion in Sweden. During recent decades, this species has become an icon of insect conservation after massive decline throughout Europe and extinction in Britain followed by reintroduction of a seed population from the Swedish island of Öland. We find that populations are highly structured genetically, but that gene flow occurs over distances 15 times longer than the maximum distance recorded from mark-recapture studies, which can only be explained by maximum dispersal distances at least twice as large as previously accepted. However, we also find evidence that gaps between sites with suitable habitat exceeding ∼ 20 km induce genetic erosion that can be detected from bottleneck analyses. Although further work is needed, our results suggest that M. arion can maintain fully functional metapopulations when they consist of optimal habitat patches that are no further apart than ∼10 km. AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Andersen, Anne AU - Boomsma, Jacobus AU - Nash, David ID - 3156 IS - 13 JF - Molecular Ecology TI - Dispersal and gene flow in the rare parasitic Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion VL - 21 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Due to the omnipresent risk of epidemics, insect societies have evolved sophisticated disease defences at the individual and colony level. An intriguing yet little understood phenomenon is that social contact to pathogen-exposed individuals reduces susceptibility of previously naive nestmates to this pathogen. We tested whether such social immunisation in Lasius ants against the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae is based on active upregulation of the immune system of nestmates following contact to an infectious individual or passive protection via transfer of immune effectors among group members—that is, active versus passive immunisation. We found no evidence for involvement of passive immunisation via transfer of antimicrobials among colony members. Instead, intensive allogrooming behaviour between naive and pathogen-exposed ants before fungal conidia firmly attached to their cuticle suggested passage of the pathogen from the exposed individuals to their nestmates. By tracing fluorescence-labelled conidia we indeed detected frequent pathogen transfer to the nestmates, where they caused low-level infections as revealed by growth of small numbers of fungal colony forming units from their dissected body content. These infections rarely led to death, but instead promoted an enhanced ability to inhibit fungal growth and an active upregulation of immune genes involved in antifungal defences (defensin and prophenoloxidase, PPO). Contrarily, there was no upregulation of the gene cathepsin L, which is associated with antibacterial and antiviral defences, and we found no increased antibacterial activity of nestmates of fungus-exposed ants. This indicates that social immunisation after fungal exposure is specific, similar to recent findings for individual-level immune priming in invertebrates. Epidemiological modeling further suggests that active social immunisation is adaptive, as it leads to faster elimination of the disease and lower death rates than passive immunisation. Interestingly, humans have also utilised the protective effect of low-level infections to fight smallpox by intentional transfer of low pathogen doses (“variolation” or “inoculation”). AU - Konrad, Matthias AU - Vyleta, Meghan AU - Theis, Fabian AU - Stock, Miriam AU - Tragust, Simon AU - Klatt, Martina AU - Drescher, Verena AU - Marr, Carsten AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 3242 IS - 4 JF - PLoS Biology TI - Social transfer of pathogenic fungus promotes active immunisation in ant colonies VL - 10 ER - TY - GEN AB - Due to the omnipresent risk of epidemics, insect societies have evolved sophisticated disease defences at the individual and colony level. An intriguing yet little understood phenomenon is that social contact to pathogen-exposed individuals reduces susceptibility of previously naive nestmates to this pathogen. We tested whether such social immunisation in Lasius ants against the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae is based on active upregulation of the immune system of nestmates following contact to an infectious individual or passive protection via transfer of immune effectors among group members—that is, active versus passive immunisation. We found no evidence for involvement of passive immunisation via transfer of antimicrobials among colony members. Instead, intensive allogrooming behaviour between naive and pathogen-exposed ants before fungal conidia firmly attached to their cuticle suggested passage of the pathogen from the exposed individuals to their nestmates. By tracing fluorescence-labelled conidia we indeed detected frequent pathogen transfer to the nestmates, where they caused low-level infections as revealed by growth of small numbers of fungal colony forming units from their dissected body content. These infections rarely led to death, but instead promoted an enhanced ability to inhibit fungal growth and an active upregulation of immune genes involved in antifungal defences (defensin and prophenoloxidase, PPO). Contrarily, there was no upregulation of the gene cathepsin L, which is associated with antibacterial and antiviral defences, and we found no increased antibacterial activity of nestmates of fungus-exposed ants. This indicates that social immunisation after fungal exposure is specific, similar to recent findings for individual-level immune priming in invertebrates. Epidemiological modeling further suggests that active social immunisation is adaptive, as it leads to faster elimination of the disease and lower death rates than passive immunisation. Interestingly, humans have also utilised the protective effect of low-level infections to fight smallpox by intentional transfer of low pathogen doses (“variolation” or “inoculation”). AU - Konrad, Matthias AU - Vyleta, Meghan AU - Theis, Fabian AU - Stock, Miriam AU - Klatt, Martina AU - Drescher, Verena AU - Marr, Carsten AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 9755 TI - Data from: Social transfer of pathogenic fungus promotes active immunisation in ant colonies ER - TY - GEN AB - To fight infectious diseases, host immune defences are employed at multiple levels. Sanitary behaviour, such as pathogen avoidance and removal, acts as a first line of defence to prevent infection [1] before activation of the physiological immune system. Insect societies have evolved a wide range of collective hygiene measures and intensive health care towards pathogen-exposed group members [2]. One of the most common behaviours is allogrooming, in which nestmates remove infectious particles from the body surfaces of exposed individuals [3]. Here we show that, in invasive garden ants, grooming of fungus-exposed brood is effective beyond the sheer mechanical removal of fungal conidiospores as it also includes chemical disinfection through the application of poison produced by the ants themselves. Formic acid is the main active component of the poison. It inhibits fungal growth of conidiospores remaining on the brood surface after grooming and also those collected in the mouth of the grooming ant. This dual function is achieved by uptake of the poison droplet into the mouth through acidopore self-grooming and subsequent application onto the infectious brood via brood grooming. This extraordinary behaviour extends current understanding of grooming and the establishment of social immunity in insect societies. AU - Tragust, Simon AU - Mitteregger, Barbara AU - Barone, Vanessa AU - Konrad, Matthias AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 9757 TI - Data from: Ants disinfect fungus-exposed brood by oral uptake and spread of their poison ER - TY - JOUR AB - Despite much research on the socially parasitic large blue butterflies (genus Maculinea) in the past 40 years, their relationship to their closest relatives, Phengaris, is controversial and the relationships among the remaining genera in the Glaucopsyche section are largely unresolved. The evolutionary history of this butterfly section is particularly important to understand the evolution of life history diversity con- nected to food-plant and host-ant associations in the larval stage. In the present study, we use a combi- nation of four nuclear and two mitochondrial genes to reconstruct the phylogeny of the Glaucopsyche section, and in particular, to study the relationships among and within the Phengaris–Maculinea species. We find a clear pattern between the clades recovered in the Glaucopsyche section phylogeny and their food-plant associations, with only the Phengaris–Maculinea clade utilising more than one plant family. Maculinea is, for the first time, recovered with strong support as a monophyletic group nested within Phengaris, with the closest relative being the rare genus Caerulea. The genus Glaucopsyche is polyphyletic, including the genera Sinia and Iolana. Interestingly, we find evidence for additional potential cryptic spe- cies within the highly endangered Maculinea, which has long been suspected from morphological, ecolog- ical and molecular studies. AU - Vila, Roger AU - Pierce, Naomi E AU - Nash, David R AU - Line Ugelvig ID - 3278 IS - 1 JF - Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution TI - A phylogenetic revision of the Glaucopsyche section (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae), with special focus on the Phengaris-Maculinea clade VL - 61 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Background: Fragmentation of terrestrial ecosystems has had detrimental effects on metapopulations of habitat specialists. Maculinea butterflies have been particularly affected because of their specialized lifecycles, requiring both specific food-plants and host-ants. However, the interaction between dispersal, effective population size, and long-term genetic erosion of these endangered butterflies remains unknown. Using non-destructive sampling, we investigated the genetic diversity of the last extant population of M. arion in Denmark, which experienced critically low numbers in the 1980s. Results: Using nine microsatellite markers, we show that the population is genetically impoverished compared to nearby populations in Sweden, but less so than monitoring programs suggested. Ten additional short repeat microsatellites were used to reconstruct changes in genetic diversity and population structure over the last 77 years from museum specimens. We also tested amplification efficiency in such historical samples as a function of repeat length and sample age. Low population numbers in the 1980s did not affect genetic diversity, but considerable turnover of alleles has characterized this population throughout the time-span of our analysis. Conclusions: Our results suggest that M. arion is less sensitive to genetic erosion via population bottlenecks than previously thought, and that managing clusters of high quality habitat may be key for long-term conservation. AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Nielsen, Per AU - Boomsma, Jacobus AU - Nash, David ID - 3388 IS - 201 JF - BMC Evolutionary Biology TI - Reconstructing eight decades of genetic variation in an isolated Danish population of the large blue butterfly Maculinea arion VL - 11 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Social organisms are constantly exposed to infectious agents via physical contact with conspecifics. While previous work has shown that disease susceptibility at the individual and group level is influenced by gen- etic diversity within and between group members, it remains poorly understood how group-level resistance to pathogens relates directly to individual physiology, defence behaviour and social interactions. We investigated the effects of high versus low genetic diversity on both the individual and collective disease defences in the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior. We compared the antiseptic behaviours (grooming and hygienic behaviour) of workers from genetically homogeneous and diverse colonies after exposure of their brood to the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae. While workers from diverse colonies performed intensive allogrooming and quickly removed larvae covered with live fungal spores from the nest, workers from homogeneous colonies only removed sick larvae late after infection. This difference was not caused by a reduced repertoire of antiseptic behaviours or a generally decreased brood care activity in ants from homogeneous colonies. Our data instead suggest that reduced genetic diversity compromises the ability of Cardiocondyla colonies to quickly detect or react to the presence of pathogenic fungal spores before an infection is established, thereby affecting the dynamics of social immunity in the colony. AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Kronauer, Daniel AU - Schrempf, Alexandra AU - Heinze, Jürgen AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 3904 IS - 1695 JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B Biological Sciences TI - Rapid anti-pathogen response in ant societies relies on high genetic diversity VL - 277 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Background The invasive garden ant, Lasius neglectus, is the most recently detected pest ant and the first known invasive ant able to become established and thrive in the temperate regions of Eurasia. In this study, we aim to reconstruct the invasion history of this ant in Europe analysing 14 populations with three complementary approaches: genetic microsatellite analysis, chemical analysis of cuticular hydrocarbon profiles and behavioural observations of aggression behaviour. We evaluate the relative informative power of the three methodological approaches and estimate both the number of independent introduction events from a yet unknown native range somewhere in the Black Sea area, and the invasive potential of the existing introduced populations. Results Three clusters of genetically similar populations were detected, and all but one population had a similar chemical profile. Aggression between populations could be predicted from their genetic and chemical distance, and two major clusters of non-aggressive groups of populations were found. However, populations of L. neglectus did not separate into clear supercolonial associations, as is typical for other invasive ants. Conclusion The three methodological approaches gave consistent and complementary results. All joint evidence supports the inference that the 14 introduced populations of L. neglectus in Europe likely arose from only very few independent introductions from the native range, and that new infestations were typically started through introductions from other invasive populations. This indicates that existing introduced populations have a very high invasive potential when the ants are inadvertently spread by human transport. AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Drijfhout, Falko AU - Kronauer, Daniel AU - Boomsma, Jacobus AU - Pedersen, Jes AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 3903 IS - 11 JF - BMC Biology TI - The introduction history of invasive garden ants in Europe: integrating genetic, chemical and behavioural approaches VL - 6 ER - TY - JOUR AU - Cremer, Sylvia AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Drijfhout, Falko AU - Schlick Steiner, Birgit AU - Steiner, Florian AU - Seifert, Bernhard AU - Hughes, David AU - Schulz, Andreas AU - Petersen, Klaus AU - Konrad, Heino AU - Stauffer, Christian AU - Kiran, Kadri AU - Espadaler, Xavier AU - D'Ettorre, Patrizia AU - Aktaç, Nihat AU - Eilenberg, Jørgen AU - Jones, Graeme AU - Nash, David AU - Pedersen, Jes AU - Boomsma, Jacobus ID - 3906 IS - 12 JF - PLoS One TI - The evolution of invasiveness in garden ants VL - 3 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Life in a social group increases the risk of disease transmission. To counteract this threat, social insects have evolved manifold antiparasite defenses, ranging from social exclusion of infected group members to intensive care. It is generally assumed that individuals performing hygienic behaviors risk infecting themselves, suggesting a high direct cost of helping. Our work instead indicates the opposite for garden ants. Social contact with individual workers, which were experimentally exposed to a fungal parasite, provided a clear survival benefit to nontreated, naive group members upon later challenge with the same parasite. This first demonstration of contact immunity in Social Hymenoptera and complementary results from other animal groups and plants suggest its general importance in both antiparasite and antiherbivore defense. In addition to this physiological prophylaxis of adult ants, infection of the brood was prevented in our experiment by behavioral changes of treated and naive workers. Parasite-treated ants stayed away from the brood chamber, whereas their naive nestmates increased brood-care activities. Our findings reveal a direct benefit for individuals to perform hygienic behaviors toward others, and this might explain the widely observed maintenance of social cohesion under parasite attack in insect societies. AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 3911 IS - 22 JF - Current Biology TI - Social prophylaxis: group interaction promotes collective immunity in ant colonies VL - 17 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Invasive species often dramatically change native species communities by directly and indirectly out-competing native species. We studied the direct interference abilities of the invasive garden ant, Lasius neglectus VAN LOON, BOOMSMA & ANDRÁSFALVY, 1990, by performing one-to-one aggression tests of L. neglectus workers towards three native Lasius ant species that occur at the edge of a L. neglectus supercolony in Seva, Spain. Our results show that L. neglectus is highly aggressive against all three native Lasius species tested (L. grandis FOREL, 1909, L. emarginatus (OLIVIER, 1792), and L. cinereus SEIFERT, 1992), expressed as a higher attack rate of L. neglectus and behavioural dominance throughout the aggressive encounters. Attacks of L. neglectus were performed fastest and most frequent against L. grandis, and also the highest antennation frequencies were observed in encounters between these two species. This could be due to the largest difference in body size, or due to a greater overlap in ecological niche between L. neglectus and L. grandis compared to the other two native species. There was only weak support for L. neglectus workers from the periphery of the supercolony to be more aggressive relative to workers from the centre, even though the former encounter native ant species on a daily basis at the edge of the supercolony. AU - Cremer, Sylvia AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Lommen, Suzanne AU - Petersen, Klaus AU - Pedersen, Jes ID - 3912 JF - Myrmecological News TI - Attack of the invasive garden ant: aggression behaviour of Lasius neglectus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) against native Lasius species in Spain VL - 9 ER -