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
In this work, we employed causal inference models for treatment effect estimation to annotate ant grooming behaviour from datasets. Specifically, we evaluated the role of model training in debiasing. 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
Teaming up with nutrient ecologists, we discovered that ants from infected colonies alter their foraging patterns to prioritize protein-rich food, while healthy ants prefer carbohydrate-rich food. We provide evidence that… Read more
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(BMC Ecol Evo, 2023) Trade-offs between immunity and competitive ability in fighting ant males
This study revealed that not only sickness but already the cost of an early immune response impairs male fighting ability in Cardiocondyla ants. Read more
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(Front Microbiol, 2023) Antiviral immune response reveals host-specific virus infections in natural ant populations
Using a combined analysis to reconstruct complete virus genomes by RNA-seq and the hosts’ antiviral immune response of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), we determined viral infection patterns in natural ant… Read more
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(Science, 2018) Social network plasticity decreases disease transmission in a eusocial insect
The study shows how ant colonies can modulate their social interaction networks after pathogen exposure to contain the disease. We found social distancing performed by infectious foragers and documented how… Read more