Category / Tag
Research article
Access our peer-reviewed research articles that explore new findings and theories in the field of social immunity in ants.
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(NeurIPS, 2024) Smoke and Mirrors in Causal Downstream Tasks
This paper looks at the causal inference task of treatment effect estimation, where the outcome of interest is recorded in high-dimensional observations in a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). Read more
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(PNAS, 2024) Frequent horizontal chromosome transfer between asexual fungal insect pathogens
This study demonstrates that horizontal transfer of entire chromosomes, previously thought unlikely, occurs both within and across species in the fungus Metarhizium, providing a competitive advantage to recipient strains under… Read more
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(Curr Biol, 2024) Fungal infection alters collective nutritional intake of ant colonies
This study explores how the role of amino acids and carbohydrates in a host-parasite system: the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, and the entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium brunneum. Read more
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(BMC Ecol Evo, 2023) Trade-offs between immunity and competitive ability in fighting ant males
The study investigates the trade-offs between investment in the immune system and the ability to compete with rival males. Read more
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(Nat Comm, 2023) Dynamic pathogen detection and social feedback shape collective hygiene in ants
The study shows that noisy individual decisions based on only local, incomplete, yet dynamically-updated information on pathogen threat and social feedback can lead to potent collective disease defense. Read more
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(Front Microbiol, 2023) Antiviral immune response reveals host-specific virus infections in natural ant populations
The authors used a dual sequencing strategy to reconstruct complete virus genomes by RNA-seq and to simultaneously determine the small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) by small RNA sequencing (sRNA-seq), which constitute… Read more
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(Nat Ecol Evol, 2023) Pathogen evasion of social immunity
This study investigates the selection pressure imposed by living in a social context. It was found that pathogens adapt to social immunity in insect colonies by producing more, though less… Read more
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(Ecol Lett, 2021) Early queen infection shapes developmental dynamics and induces long-term disease protection in incipient ant colonies
The study examines the effects of infections in newly mated Lasius niger queens on the development of the ant colony. Read more
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(Ecol Lett, 2020) Social immunity modulates competition between coinfecting pathogens
This study investigates how social host interactions influence pathogen competition during coinfections. Read more
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(Science, 2018) Social network plasticity decreases disease transmission in a eusocial insect
The study shows that behavioral changes after pathogen exposure help to contain the disease. It suggests that in social groups network plasticity after contact to a pathogen helps reducing the… Read more