Healthy ants that rub up against infected counterparts or even lick pathogenic fungal spores off them may be immunizing themselves and, ultimately, protecting their whole colony.
Sylvia Cremer at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in Klosterneuburg and her colleagues infected ants (Lasius neglectus; pictured) with fluorescently labelled fungal spores (Metarhizium anisopliae) and released them among healthy members of their colony. The authors found that spores frequently transferred to healthy ants, resulting in low-level infection. Genetic analysis revealed that these minor infections upregulated a set of immune-system genes that bolstered the ants' anti-fungal defences.
Computer modelling suggests that this 'social immunization' actively stimulates the ants' immune systems, allowing the colony as a whole to fight infection.
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Licking ants fight fungal infection. Nature 484, 144 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/484144c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/484144c