Increased immunocompetence and network centrality of allogroomer workers suggest a link between individual and social immunity in honeybees.

ABSTRACT: The significant risk of disease transmission has selected for effective immune-defense strategies in insect societies. Division of labour, with individuals specialized in immunity-related tasks, strongly contributes to prevent the spread of diseases. A trade-off, however, may exist between phenotypic specialization to increase task efficiency and maintenance of plasticity to cope with variable colony demands. We investigated the extent of phenotypic specialization associated with a specific task by using allogrooming in the honeybee, Apis mellifera, where worker behaviour might lower ectoparasites load. We adopted an integrated approach to characterize the behavioural and physiological phenotype of allogroomers, by analyzing their behavior (both at individual and social network level), the

SUBMITTER: Cini A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7265547 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature