Abstract
Entomopathogenic fungus as well as their toxins is a natural threat surrounding social insect colonies. To defend against them, social insects have evolved a series of unique disease defenses at the colony level, which consists of behavioral and physiological adaptations. These colony-level defenses can reduce the infection and poisoning risk and improve the survival of societal members, and is known as social immunity. In this review, we discuss how social immunity enables the insect colony to avoid, resist and tolerate fungal pathogens. To understand the molecular basis of social immunity, we highlight several genetic elements and biochemical factors that drive the colony-level defense, which needs further verification. We discuss the chemosensory genes in regulating social behaviors, the antifungal secretions such as some insect venoms in external defense and the immune priming in internal defense. To conclude, we show the possible driving force of the fungal toxins for the evolution of social immunity. Throughout the review, we propose several questions involved in social immunity extended from some phenomena that have been reported. We hope our review about social ‘host–fungal pathogen’ interactions will help us further understand the mechanism of social immunity in eusocial insects.
Highlights
Social insects such as termites, ants, bees and wasps benefit a lot from sociality compared with solitary insects
In of social insect societies formed by different behavior-and-physiology termites and ants, social contact with individuals contaminated with the fungus Metarhizium often members contribute to social immunity, we discuss how these individuals interaction networks facilitate social leads to transmission of a low pathogen dose from the contaminated to their caregivers
Social insects have evolved highly complex social interactions of ‘host–fungal pathogen’ and ‘host–host’, which consists of recognition, communication and a combination of multi-defense strategies
Summary
Social insects such as termites, ants, bees and wasps benefit a lot from sociality compared with solitary insects. The functional mechanism of social immunity in insects was reported in a growing number of studies Fungal pathogens such as Metarhizium and Beauveria have been important material for studying social immunity in insects [10,11,12,13,14,15,16]. In addition to the infection at the level of individuals, a similar phenomenon occurs at the level of colonies in social insect societies Social insects in their colony are similar to cells in a body, communicate with each other and collectively work as a superorganism [23]. When fungal pathogens contaminate foragers outside the colony, they can exploit the social network to invade the colony, spread from the contaminated individuals to their naive nestmates, causing disease symptom in their group members, and kill the colony [1,4]. We mainly focus on social immunity of insects and its molecular basis in response
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