@article{18892,
  abstract     = {Sick individuals often conceal their disease status to group members, thereby preventing social exclusion or aggression. Here we show by behavioural, chemical, immunological and infection load analyses that sick ant pupae instead actively emit a chemical signal that in itself is sufficient to trigger their own destruction by colony members. In our experiments, this altruistic disease-signalling was performed only by worker but not queen pupae. The lack of signalling by queen pupae did not constitute cheating behaviour, but reflected their superior immune capabilities. Worker pupae suffered from extensive pathogen replication whereas queen pupae were able to restrain their infection. Our data suggest the evolution of a finely-tuned signalling system in which it is not the induction of an individual’s immune response, but rather its failure to overcome the infection, that triggers pupal signalling for sacrifice. This demonstrates a balanced interplay between individual and social immunity that efficiently achieves whole-colony health.},
  author       = {Dawson, Erika and Hönigsberger, Michaela and Kampleitner, Niklas and Grasse, Anna V and Lindorfer, Lukas and Robb, Jennifer and Beikzadeh Abbasi, Farnaz and Strahodinsky, Florian and Leitner, Hanna and Rajendran, Harikrishnan and Schmitt, Thomas and Cremer, Sylvia},
  issn         = {2041-1723},
  journal      = {Nature Communications},
  publisher    = {Springer Nature},
  title        = {{Altruistic disease signalling in ant colonies}},
  doi          = {10.1038/s41467-025-66175-z},
  volume       = {16},
  year         = {2025},
}

@phdthesis{19993,
  abstract     = {Ants are frequently challenged by different pathogens, which they counter with
individual and collective responses. Usually, the pathogens like fungi or viruses are
solitary and passive pathogens transmitted from host to host. Here, we use a nematobacterial pathogen complex to study worm-borne disease in black garden ants. These
entomopathogenic nematodes are active parasites with an own behavior and chasing
pray.
In the first chapter, we investigated the basic biology of the host-pathogen relationship.
We tested different ant life stages and found that adult ants display defense behaviors
and are generally resistant to nematode infection, whereas brood is highly susceptible.
In the case of worker pupae, we found a slight protective effect of the cocoon. When
larvae are accompanied by adults, meaning a queen or a group of workers, survival is
significantly enhanced. Moreover, we found that nematodes can transmit from infected
cadavers to healthy worker larvae, confirming a transmissible disease in ants. Again,
worker presence significantly reduces transmission risk. In the end, we were also able
to disentangle the pathogen system and investigate the pathogenic effect of the
bacterial and nematode components.
In the second chapter, we studied the effect of multiple infections in adult queens and
queen larvae. By multiple exposures in the mode of coinfection and superinfections,
we wanted to assess the detrimental effect of combined fungal and nematode
exposure to better understand how the pathogens interact with each other in an ant
host. We found instances where combined exposure lead to higher mortality in a given
time frame in both, adult queens and queen larvae.
Overall entomopathogenic nematodes are a promising model to study worm infections
in ants which extend our knowledge on collective disease defense.},
  author       = {Strahodinsky, Florian},
  issn         = {2663-337X},
  pages        = {138},
  publisher    = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria},
  title        = {{Social immunity in a tri-partite host-pathogen relationship}},
  doi          = {10.15479/AT-ISTA-19993},
  year         = {2025},
}