Westhus, Claudia and Ugelvig, Line V. and Tourdot, Edouard and Heinze, Juergen and Doums, Claudie and Cremer, Sylvia (2014) Increased grooming after repeated brood care provides sanitary benefits in a clonal ant. BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY, 68 (10). pp. 1701-1710. ISSN 0340-5443, 1432-0762
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | DIVISION-OF-LABOR; FUNGUS METARHIZIUM-ANISOPLIAE; HONEY-BEE COLONIES; LEAF-CUTTING ANTS; TERMITE ZOOTERMOPSIS-ANGUSTICOLLIS; DISEASE RESISTANCE; SOCIAL INSECTS; ENTOMOPATHOGENIC FUNGUS; HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR; BOMBUS-TERRESTRIS; Host-parasite interactions; Sanitary brood care; Experience; Grooming; Platythyrea punctata; Metarhizium fungus |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 590 Zoological sciences |
| Divisions: | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Zoologie > Zoologie/Evolutionsbiologie (Prof. Dr. Jürgen Heinze) |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Aug 2019 09:11 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Aug 2019 09:11 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/9495 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
