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      When Subterranean Termites Challenge the Rules of Fungal Epizootics

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      PLoS ONE
      Public Library of Science

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          Abstract

          Over the past 50 years, repeated attempts have been made to develop biological control technologies for use against economically important species of subterranean termites, focusing primarily on the use of the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae. However, no successful field implementation of biological control has been reported. Most previous work has been conducted under the assumption that environmental conditions within termite nests would favor the growth and dispersion of entomopathogenic agents, resulting in an epizootic. Epizootics rely on the ability of the pathogenic microorganism to self-replicate and disperse among the host population. However, our study shows that due to multilevel disease resistance mechanisms, the incidence of an epizootic within a group of termites is unlikely. By exposing groups of 50 termites in planar arenas containing sand particles treated with a range of densities of an entomopathogenic fungus, we were able to quantify behavioral patterns as a function of the death ratios resulting from the fungal exposure. The inability of the fungal pathogen M. anisopliae to complete its life cycle within a Coptotermes formosanus (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) group was mainly the result of cannibalism and the burial behavior of the nest mates, even when termite mortality reached up to 75%. Because a subterranean termite colony, as a superorganism, can prevent epizootics of M. anisopliae, the traditional concepts of epizootiology may not apply to this social insect when exposed to fungal pathogens, or other pathogen for which termites have evolved behavioral and physiological means of disrupting their life cycle.

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          Interactions Between Fungal Pathogens and Insect Hosts

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            Genetic, individual, and group facilitation of disease resistance in insect societies.

            In this review, we provide a current reference on disease resistance in insect societies. We start with the genetics of immunity in the context of behavioral and physiological processes and scale up levels of biological organization until we reach populations. A significant component of this review focuses on Apis mellifera and its role as a model system for studies on social immunity. We additionally review the models that have been applied to disease transmission in social insects and elucidate areas for future study in the field of social immunity.
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              Trade-offs in group living: transmission and disease resistance in leaf-cutting ants.

              Sociality can be associated with significant costs due to the increased risk of disease transmission. However, in some organisms the costs may be offset by benefits due to improvements in defences against parasites. To examine this possible trade-off between infection risk and disease resistance, we used Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants and the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae as the model system. Ants exposed to the parasite were found to have substantially improved survival when they were kept with nest-mates, while the cost of being in a group in terms of increased disease transmission was very low. The efficiency of transmission is described by the transmission parameter, which decreased with increasing host density showing that transmission rates are inversely density dependent. Both grooming and antibiotic secretions appeared to be important in resistance against the parasite, with the defences of small workers being particularly effective. The results indicate that leaf-cutting ant colonies may have much greater resistance to disease than would be predicted from the high densities of host individuals within them. Unlike most organisms, group living in these ants may actually be associated with a net benefit in terms of disease dynamics.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2012
                28 March 2012
                : 7
                : 3
                : e34484
                Affiliations
                [1]Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of Florida, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States of America
                University of Leeds, United Kingdom
                Author notes

                Conceived and designed the experiments: TC. Performed the experiments: TC. Analyzed the data: TC. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TC NS. Wrote the paper: TC NS.

                Article
                PONE-D-11-24569
                10.1371/journal.pone.0034484
                3314638
                22470575
                3b71d04e-f4eb-4dd6-b302-9f0dae769fad
                Chouvenc, Su. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
                History
                : 7 December 2011
                : 2 March 2012
                Page count
                Pages: 7
                Categories
                Research Article
                Agriculture
                Pest Control
                Biology
                Ecology
                Evolutionary Biology
                Microbiology
                Mycology
                Theoretical Biology
                Zoology

                Uncategorized
                Uncategorized

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