---
_id: '616'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: Social insects protect their colonies from infectious disease through collective
    defences that result in social immunity. In ants, workers first try to prevent
    infection of colony members. Here, we show that if this fails and a pathogen establishes
    an infection, ants employ an efficient multicomponent behaviour − "destructive
    disinfection" − to prevent further spread of disease through the colony.
    Ants specifically target infected pupae during the pathogen's non-contagious incubation
    period, relying on chemical 'sickness cues' emitted by pupae. They then remove
    the pupal cocoon, perforate its cuticle and administer antimicrobial poison, which
    enters the body and prevents pathogen replication from the inside out. Like the
    immune system of a body that specifically targets and eliminates infected cells,
    this social immunity measure sacrifices infected brood to stop the pathogen completing
    its lifecycle, thus protecting the rest of the colony. Hence, the same principles
    of disease defence apply at different levels of biological organisation.
article_number: e32073
article_processing_charge: Yes
author:
- first_name: Christopher
  full_name: Pull, Christopher
  id: 3C7F4840-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pull
  orcid: 0000-0003-1122-3982
- first_name: Line V
  full_name: Ugelvig, Line V
  id: 3DC97C8E-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Ugelvig
  orcid: 0000-0003-1832-8883
- first_name: Florian
  full_name: Wiesenhofer, Florian
  id: 39523C54-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Wiesenhofer
- first_name: Anna V
  full_name: Grasse, Anna V
  id: 406F989C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Grasse
- first_name: Simon
  full_name: Tragust, Simon
  id: 35A7A418-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Tragust
- first_name: Thomas
  full_name: Schmitt, Thomas
  last_name: Schmitt
- first_name: Mark
  full_name: Brown, Mark
  last_name: Brown
- first_name: Sylvia
  full_name: Cremer, Sylvia
  id: 2F64EC8C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Cremer
  orcid: 0000-0002-2193-3868
citation:
  ama: Pull C, Ugelvig LV, Wiesenhofer F, et al. Destructive disinfection of infected
    brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies. <i>eLife</i>. 2018;7.
    doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32073">10.7554/eLife.32073</a>
  apa: Pull, C., Ugelvig, L. V., Wiesenhofer, F., Grasse, A. V., Tragust, S., Schmitt,
    T., … Cremer, S. (2018). Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic
    disease spread in ant colonies. <i>ELife</i>. eLife Sciences Publications. <a
    href="https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32073">https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32073</a>
  chicago: Pull, Christopher, Line V Ugelvig, Florian Wiesenhofer, Anna V Grasse,
    Simon Tragust, Thomas Schmitt, Mark Brown, and Sylvia Cremer. “Destructive Disinfection
    of Infected Brood Prevents Systemic Disease Spread in Ant Colonies.” <i>ELife</i>.
    eLife Sciences Publications, 2018. <a href="https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32073">https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32073</a>.
  ieee: C. Pull <i>et al.</i>, “Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents
    systemic disease spread in ant colonies,” <i>eLife</i>, vol. 7. eLife Sciences
    Publications, 2018.
  ista: Pull C, Ugelvig LV, Wiesenhofer F, Grasse AV, Tragust S, Schmitt T, Brown
    M, Cremer S. 2018. Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic
    disease spread in ant colonies. eLife. 7, e32073.
  mla: Pull, Christopher, et al. “Destructive Disinfection of Infected Brood Prevents
    Systemic Disease Spread in Ant Colonies.” <i>ELife</i>, vol. 7, e32073, eLife
    Sciences Publications, 2018, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32073">10.7554/eLife.32073</a>.
  short: C. Pull, L.V. Ugelvig, F. Wiesenhofer, A.V. Grasse, S. Tragust, T. Schmitt,
    M. Brown, S. Cremer, ELife 7 (2018).
date_created: 2018-12-11T11:47:31Z
date_published: 2018-01-09T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2023-09-11T12:54:26Z
day: '09'
ddc:
- '570'
- '590'
department:
- _id: SyCr
doi: 10.7554/eLife.32073
ec_funded: 1
external_id:
  isi:
  - '000419601300001'
file:
- access_level: open_access
  checksum: 540f941e8d3530a9441e4affd94f07d7
  content_type: application/pdf
  creator: system
  date_created: 2018-12-12T10:10:43Z
  date_updated: 2020-07-14T12:47:20Z
  file_id: '4832'
  file_name: IST-2018-978-v1+1_elife-32073-v1.pdf
  file_size: 1435585
  relation: main_file
file_date_updated: 2020-07-14T12:47:20Z
has_accepted_license: '1'
intvolume: '         7'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
month: '01'
oa: 1
oa_version: Published Version
project:
- _id: 25DC711C-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: FP7
  grant_number: '243071'
  name: 'Social Vaccination in Ant Colonies: from Individual Mechanisms to Society
    Effects'
- _id: 25DDF0F0-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: FP7
  grant_number: '302004'
  name: 'Pathogen Detectors Collective disease defence and pathogen detection abilities
    in ant societies: a chemo-neuro-immunological approach'
publication: eLife
publication_status: published
publisher: eLife Sciences Publications
publist_id: '7188'
pubrep_id: '978'
quality_controlled: '1'
related_material:
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scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread
  in ant colonies
tmp:
  image: /images/cc_by.png
  legal_code_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
  name: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)
  short: CC BY (4.0)
type: journal_article
user_id: c635000d-4b10-11ee-a964-aac5a93f6ac1
volume: 7
year: '2018'
...
---
_id: '1830'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: To prevent epidemics, insect societies have evolved collective disease defences
    that are highly effective at curing exposed individuals and limiting disease transmission
    to healthy group members. Grooming is an important sanitary behaviour—either performed
    towards oneself (self-grooming) or towards others (allogrooming)—to remove infectious
    agents from the body surface of exposed individuals, but at the risk of disease
    contraction by the groomer. We use garden ants (Lasius neglectus) and the fungal
    pathogen Metarhizium as a model system to study how pathogen presence affects
    self-grooming and allogrooming between exposed and healthy individuals. We develop
    an epidemiological SIS model to explore how experimentally observed grooming patterns
    affect disease spread within the colony, thereby providing a direct link between
    the expression and direction of sanitary behaviours, and their effects on colony-level
    epidemiology. We find that fungus-exposed ants increase self-grooming, while simultaneously
    decreasing allogrooming. This behavioural modulation seems universally adaptive
    and is predicted to contain disease spread in a great variety of host–pathogen
    systems. In contrast, allogrooming directed towards pathogen-exposed individuals
    might both increase and decrease disease risk. Our model reveals that the effect
    of allogrooming depends on the balance between pathogen infectiousness and efficiency
    of social host defences, which are likely to vary across host–pathogen systems.
acknowledgement: We thank Meghan L. Vyleta for the genetical fungal strain characterization
  and Eva Sixt for ant drawings, Matthias Konrad for discussion and Christopher D.
  Pull, Barbara Casillas-Peréz, Sebastian Novak, as well as three anonymous reviewers
  and the theme issue editors Peter Kappeler and Charlie Nunn for valuable comments
  on the manuscript.
article_processing_charge: No
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: Fabian
  full_name: Theis, Fabian
  last_name: Theis
- first_name: Line V
  full_name: Ugelvig, Line V
  id: 3DC97C8E-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Ugelvig
  orcid: 0000-0003-1832-8883
- first_name: Carsten
  full_name: Marr, Carsten
  last_name: Marr
- first_name: Sylvia
  full_name: Cremer, Sylvia
  id: 2F64EC8C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Cremer
  orcid: 0000-0002-2193-3868
citation:
  ama: Theis F, Ugelvig LV, Marr C, Cremer S. Opposing effects of allogrooming on
    disease transmission in ant societies. <i>Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
    Society of London Series B, Biological Sciences</i>. 2015;370(1669). doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0108">10.1098/rstb.2014.0108</a>
  apa: Theis, F., Ugelvig, L. V., Marr, C., &#38; Cremer, S. (2015). Opposing effects
    of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies. <i>Philosophical Transactions
    of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences</i>. Royal Society,
    The. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0108">https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0108</a>
  chicago: Theis, Fabian, Line V Ugelvig, Carsten Marr, and Sylvia Cremer. “Opposing
    Effects of Allogrooming on Disease Transmission in Ant Societies.” <i>Philosophical
    Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences</i>.
    Royal Society, The, 2015. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0108">https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0108</a>.
  ieee: F. Theis, L. V. Ugelvig, C. Marr, and S. Cremer, “Opposing effects of allogrooming
    on disease transmission in ant societies,” <i>Philosophical Transactions of the
    Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences</i>, vol. 370, no. 1669.
    Royal Society, The, 2015.
  ista: Theis F, Ugelvig LV, Marr C, Cremer S. 2015. Opposing effects of allogrooming
    on disease transmission in ant societies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
    Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences. 370(1669).
  mla: Theis, Fabian, et al. “Opposing Effects of Allogrooming on Disease Transmission
    in Ant Societies.” <i>Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
    Series B, Biological Sciences</i>, vol. 370, no. 1669, Royal Society, The, 2015,
    doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0108">10.1098/rstb.2014.0108</a>.
  short: F. Theis, L.V. Ugelvig, C. Marr, S. Cremer, Philosophical Transactions of
    the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 370 (2015).
date_created: 2018-12-11T11:54:15Z
date_published: 2015-05-26T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2023-02-23T14:06:12Z
day: '26'
department:
- _id: SyCr
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0108
ec_funded: 1
external_id:
  pmid:
  - '25870394'
intvolume: '       370'
issue: '1669'
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4410374/
month: '05'
oa: 1
oa_version: Submitted Version
pmid: 1
project:
- _id: 25DC711C-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: FP7
  grant_number: '243071'
  name: 'Social Vaccination in Ant Colonies: from Individual Mechanisms to Society
    Effects'
- _id: 25DDF0F0-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: FP7
  grant_number: '302004'
  name: 'Pathogen Detectors Collective disease defence and pathogen detection abilities
    in ant societies: a chemo-neuro-immunological approach'
- _id: 25E0E184-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  name: Antnet
- _id: 25E24DB2-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  name: Fellowship of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
publication: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B,
  Biological Sciences
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 1471-2970
  issn:
  - 0962-8436
publication_status: published
publisher: Royal Society, The
publist_id: '5273'
quality_controlled: '1'
related_material:
  record:
  - id: '9721'
    relation: research_data
    status: public
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies
type: journal_article
user_id: 6785fbc1-c503-11eb-8a32-93094b40e1cf
volume: 370
year: '2015'
...
---
_id: '2926'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: To fight infectious diseases, host immune defenses are employed at multiple
    levels. Sanitary behavior, such as pathogen avoidance and removal, acts as a first
    line of defense to prevent infection [1] before activation of the physiological
    immune system. Insect societies have evolved a wide range of collective hygiene
    measures and intensive health care toward pathogen-exposed group members [2].
    One of the most common behaviors is allogrooming, in which nestmates remove infectious
    particles from the body surfaces of exposed individuals [3]. Here we show that,
    in invasive garden ants, grooming of fungus-exposed brood is effective beyond
    the sheer mechanical removal of fungal conidiospores; it also includes chemical
    disinfection through the application of poison produced by the ants themselves.
    Formic acid is the main active component of the poison. It inhibits fungal growth
    of conidiospores remaining on the brood surface after grooming and also those
    collected in the mouth of the grooming ant. This dual function is achieved by
    uptake of the poison droplet into the mouth through acidopore self-grooming and
    subsequent application onto the infectious brood via brood grooming. This extraordinary
    behavior extends the current understanding of grooming and the establishment of
    social immunity in insect societies.
acknowledgement: "Funding for this project was obtained by the German Research Foundation
  (DFG, to S.C.) and the European Research Council (ERC, through an ERC-Starting Grant
  to S.C. and an Individual Marie Curie IEF fellowship to L.V.U.).\r\nWe thank Jørgen
  Eilenberg, Bernhardt Steinwender, Miriam Stock, and Meghan L. Vyleta for the fungal
  strain and its characterization; Volker Witte for chemical information; Eva Sixt
  for ant drawings; and Robert Hauschild for help with image analysis. We further
  thank Martin Kaltenpoth, Michael Sixt, Jürgen Heinze, and Joachim Ruther for discussion
  and Daria Siekhaus, Sophie A.O. Armitage, and Leila Masri for comments on the manuscript.
  \r\n"
author:
- first_name: Simon
  full_name: Tragust, Simon
  id: 35A7A418-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Tragust
- first_name: Barbara
  full_name: Mitteregger, Barbara
  id: 479DDAAC-E9CD-11E9-9B5F-82450873F7A1
  last_name: Mitteregger
- first_name: Vanessa
  full_name: Barone, Vanessa
  id: 419EECCC-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Barone
  orcid: 0000-0003-2676-3367
- first_name: Matthias
  full_name: Konrad, Matthias
  id: 46528076-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Konrad
- first_name: Line V
  full_name: Ugelvig, Line V
  id: 3DC97C8E-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Ugelvig
  orcid: 0000-0003-1832-8883
- first_name: Sylvia
  full_name: Cremer, Sylvia
  id: 2F64EC8C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Cremer
  orcid: 0000-0002-2193-3868
citation:
  ama: Tragust S, Mitteregger B, Barone V, Konrad M, Ugelvig LV, Cremer S. Ants disinfect
    fungus-exposed brood by oral uptake and spread of their poison. <i>Current Biology</i>.
    2013;23(1):76-82. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034">10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034</a>
  apa: Tragust, S., Mitteregger, B., Barone, V., Konrad, M., Ugelvig, L. V., &#38;
    Cremer, S. (2013). Ants disinfect fungus-exposed brood by oral uptake and spread
    of their poison. <i>Current Biology</i>. Cell Press. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034</a>
  chicago: Tragust, Simon, Barbara Mitteregger, Vanessa Barone, Matthias Konrad, Line
    V Ugelvig, and Sylvia Cremer. “Ants Disinfect Fungus-Exposed Brood by Oral Uptake
    and Spread of Their Poison.” <i>Current Biology</i>. Cell Press, 2013. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034</a>.
  ieee: S. Tragust, B. Mitteregger, V. Barone, M. Konrad, L. V. Ugelvig, and S. Cremer,
    “Ants disinfect fungus-exposed brood by oral uptake and spread of their poison,”
    <i>Current Biology</i>, vol. 23, no. 1. Cell Press, pp. 76–82, 2013.
  ista: Tragust S, Mitteregger B, Barone V, Konrad M, Ugelvig LV, Cremer S. 2013.
    Ants disinfect fungus-exposed brood by oral uptake and spread of their poison.
    Current Biology. 23(1), 76–82.
  mla: Tragust, Simon, et al. “Ants Disinfect Fungus-Exposed Brood by Oral Uptake
    and Spread of Their Poison.” <i>Current Biology</i>, vol. 23, no. 1, Cell Press,
    2013, pp. 76–82, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034">10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034</a>.
  short: S. Tragust, B. Mitteregger, V. Barone, M. Konrad, L.V. Ugelvig, S. Cremer,
    Current Biology 23 (2013) 76–82.
date_created: 2018-12-11T12:00:23Z
date_published: 2013-01-07T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2023-09-07T12:05:08Z
day: '07'
department:
- _id: SyCr
- _id: CaHe
doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.034
ec_funded: 1
intvolume: '        23'
issue: '1'
language:
- iso: eng
month: '01'
oa_version: None
page: 76 - 82
project:
- _id: 25DAF0B2-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  grant_number: CR-118/3-1
  name: Host-Parasite Coevolution
- _id: 25DC711C-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: FP7
  grant_number: '243071'
  name: 'Social Vaccination in Ant Colonies: from Individual Mechanisms to Society
    Effects'
- _id: 25DDF0F0-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: FP7
  grant_number: '302004'
  name: 'Pathogen Detectors Collective disease defence and pathogen detection abilities
    in ant societies: a chemo-neuro-immunological approach'
publication: Current Biology
publication_status: published
publisher: Cell Press
publist_id: '3811'
quality_controlled: '1'
related_material:
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  - id: '9757'
    relation: research_data
    status: public
  - id: '961'
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    status: public
scopus_import: 1
status: public
title: Ants disinfect fungus-exposed brood by oral uptake and spread of their poison
type: journal_article
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
volume: 23
year: '2013'
...