Stock, Miriam; Milutinović, Barbara; Hoenigsberger, Michaela; Grasse, Anna V.; Wiesenhofer, Florian; Kampleitner, Niklas; Narasimhan, Madhumitha; Schmitt, Thomas; Cremer, Sylvia (2023) Pathogen evasion of social immunity. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 7 (3). pp. 450-460. ISSN 2397-334X
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Abstract
Treating sick group members is a hallmark of collective disease defence, in vertebrates and invertebrates alike. Despite significant effects on pathogen fitness and epidemiology, it is still largely unknown how pathogens react to the selection pressure imposed by care intervention. Using social insects and pathogenic fungi, we here performed a serial passage experiment in the presence or absence of colony members, which provide social immunity by grooming off infectious spores from exposed individuals. We found specific effects on pathogen diversity, virulence and transmission. Under selection of social immunity, pathogens invested into higher spore production, but spores were less virulent. Notably, they also elicited a lower grooming response in colony members, compared to spores from the individual host selection lines. Chemical spore analysis suggested that the spores from social selection lines escaped the caregivers’ detection by containing lower levels of ergosterol, a key fungal membrane component. Experimental application of chemically pure ergosterol indeed induced sanitary grooming, supporting its role as microbe-associated cue triggering host social immunity against fungal pathogens. By reducing this detection cue, pathogens were able to evade the otherwise very effective collective disease defences of their social hosts.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | host-parasite interactions; serial passage; common garden experiment; behavioural defences; sanitary behaviour; grooming; coinfection; MAMPs; ants |
Subjects: | NATURAL SCIENCES > Biology > Ecology NATURAL SCIENCES > Biology > Genetics, Evolution and Phylogenetics |
Divisions: | Division of Molecular Biology |
Depositing User: | Barbara Milutinović |
Date Deposited: | 10 Jan 2025 10:40 |
URI: | http://fulir.irb.hr/id/eprint/9405 |
DOI: | 10.1038/s41559-023-01981-6 |
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