---
_id: '20471'
abstract:
- lang: eng
text: '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. '
acknowledgement: 'We thank Joergen Eilenberg and Nicolai V. Meyling for the fungal
strain, and the ISTA Social Immunity team, Jonghyun Park and Yuko Ulrich for ant
collection. We also thank the Social Immunity team, in particular David Moreno Martínez,
Tanvi Madaan, Wilfrid Jean Louis and Jessica Kirchner, for experimental and molecular
support, as well as Friedrich Fochler for technical support with the chemical analysis,
and the ISTA Lab Support Facility, including the mass spectrometry unit, for general
and chemical laboratory support. We further thank Marco Ribezzi for advice on 13C
calculations and Ernst Pittenauer for discussion of the chemical data, Chris Pull
and Michael Sixt for project discussion and the Social Immunity team for comments
on the manuscript. The study was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under
the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation Programme (No. 771402;
EPIDEMICSonCHIP) to SC. '
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Sylvia
full_name: Cremer, Sylvia
id: 2F64EC8C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
last_name: Cremer
orcid: 0000-0002-2193-3868
citation:
ama: Cremer S. Altruistic disease signalling in ant colonies. 2025. doi:10.15479/AT-ISTA-20471
apa: Cremer, S. (2025). Altruistic disease signalling in ant colonies. Institute
of Science and Technology Austria. https://doi.org/10.15479/AT-ISTA-20471
chicago: Cremer, Sylvia. “Altruistic Disease Signalling in Ant Colonies.” Institute
of Science and Technology Austria, 2025. https://doi.org/10.15479/AT-ISTA-20471.
ieee: S. Cremer, “Altruistic disease signalling in ant colonies.” Institute of Science
and Technology Austria, 2025.
ista: Cremer S. 2025. Altruistic disease signalling in ant colonies, Institute of
Science and Technology Austria, 10.15479/AT-ISTA-20471.
mla: Cremer, Sylvia. Altruistic Disease Signalling in Ant Colonies. Institute
of Science and Technology Austria, 2025, doi:10.15479/AT-ISTA-20471.
short: S. Cremer, (2025).
contributor:
- first_name: Erika
id: 31B4E2D0-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
last_name: Dawson
- first_name: Michaela
id: 953894f3-25bd-11ec-8556-f70a9d38ef60
last_name: Hönigsberger
- first_name: Niklas
id: 2AC57FAC-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
last_name: Kampleitner
- first_name: Anna V
id: 406F989C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
last_name: Grasse
- first_name: Lukas
id: 85f0e6d3-06b3-11ec-8982-8c5049fa4455
last_name: Lindorfer
- first_name: Jennifer
id: 7bc2734a-e2c6-11ea-9824-a2ed5f0662a8
last_name: Robb
- first_name: Farnaz
id: 0344bfb9-3feb-11ee-87e9-c27edc800bcd
last_name: Beikzadeh Abbasi
- first_name: Florian
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last_name: Strahodinsky
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last_name: Leitner
- first_name: Harikrishnan
id: 876b6b34-8ff4-11ec-97c9-8d95a7aae416
last_name: Rajendran
- first_name: Thomas
last_name: Schmitt
- first_name: Sylvia
id: 2F64EC8C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
last_name: Cremer
orcid: 0000-0002-2193-3868
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2025-10-16T09:02:16Z
date_published: 2025-10-16T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-06-10T08:50:53Z
day: '16'
ddc:
- '570'
department:
- _id: SyCr
doi: 10.15479/AT-ISTA-20471
ec_funded: 1
file:
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checksum: 01fbc46af38c4f72970fe2865d47a29b
content_type: text/plain
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date_created: 2025-10-16T08:52:07Z
date_updated: 2025-10-16T08:52:07Z
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keyword:
- host-parasite interactions
- social insects
- social immunity
- chemical communication
- cooperation
month: '10'
oa: 1
oa_version: Published Version
project:
- _id: 2649B4DE-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
call_identifier: H2020
grant_number: '771402'
name: Epidemics in ant societies on a chip
publisher: Institute of Science and Technology Austria
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record:
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relation: used_in_publication
status: public
status: public
title: Altruistic disease signalling in ant colonies
tmp:
image: /images/cc_by_nc_nd.png
legal_code_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
name: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
short: CC BY-NC-ND (4.0)
type: research_data
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...