A theoretical exploration of dietary collective medication in social insects
Authored by Mathieu Lihoreau, Jerome Buhl, Laure-Anne Poissonnier, Tamara Gomez-Moracho, Audrey Dussutour
Date Published: 2018
DOI: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2017.08.005
Sponsors:
French National Research Agency (ANR)
French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Australian Research Council (ARC)
Platforms:
MATLAB
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Flow charts
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Animals often alter their food choices following a pathogen infection in
order to increase immune function and combat the infection. Whether
social animals that collect food for their brood or nestmates adjust
their nutrient intake to the infection states of their social partners
is virtually unexplored. Here we develop an individual-based model of
nutritional geometry to examine the impact of collective nutrient
balancing on pathogen spread in a social insect colony. The model
simulates a hypothetical social insect colony infected by a horizontally
transmitted parasite. Simulation experiments suggest that collective
nutrition, by which foragers adjust their nutrient intake to
simultaneously address their own nutritional needs as well as those of
their infected nestmates, is an efficient social immunity mechanism to
limit contamination when immune responses are short. Impaired foraging
in infected workers can favour colony resilience when pathogen
transmission rate is low (by reducing contacts with the few infected
foragers) or trigger colony collapse when transmission rate is fast (by
depleting the entire pool of foragers). Our theoretical examination of
dietary collective medication in social insects suggests a new possible
mechanism by which colonies can defend themselves against pathogens and
provides a conceptual framework for experimental investigations of the
nutritional immunology of social animals.
Tags
Individual-based model
behavior
Social insects
Balance
Life-span
Feeding-behavior
Pollen
Protein costs
Apis-mellifera
Nutritional geometry
Nutritional immunology
Social immunity
Essential amino-acids
Honey-bee colonies
Self-medication
Nosema-ceranae
Nutritional ecology
Flight
performance
Honey-bee workers