scholarly journals Effects of inbreeding on immune response and body size in a social insect, Bombus terrestris

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 582-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. U. Gerloff ◽  
B. K. Ottmer ◽  
P. Schmid-Hempel
Keyword(s):  
Immune Response ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Social Insect ◽  
Bombus Terrestris

scholarly journals Scaling in the Immune System: PhD Thesis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
soumya banerjee
Keyword(s):  
Immune Response ◽  
Immune System ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Response Rates ◽  
System Response ◽  
Metabolic Rates ◽  
Viral Dynamics ◽  
Immune System Response ◽  
Phd Thesis

How different is the immune system in a human from that of a mouse? Do pathogens replicate at the same rate in different species? Answers to these questions have impact on human health since multi-host pathogens that jump from animals to humans affect millions worldwide.It is not known how rates of immune response and viral dynamics vary from species to species and how they depend on species body size. Metabolic scalingtheory predicts that intracellular processes will be slower in larger animals since cellular metabolic rates are slower. We test how rates of pathogenesis and immune system response rates depend on species body size.

Social influences on body size and developmental time in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (10) ◽  
pp. 1601-1612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hagai Shpigler ◽  
Matan Tamarkin ◽  
Yael Gruber ◽  
Maayan Poleg ◽  
Adam J. Siegel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Social Influences ◽  
Developmental Time

scholarly journals Is diversity in worker body size important for the performance of bumble bee colonies?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob G. Holland ◽  
Shinnosuke Nakayama ◽  
Maurizio Porfiri ◽  
Oded Nov ◽  
Guy Bloch
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Bumble Bee ◽  
Insect Societies ◽  
Physiological Adaptations ◽  
Comparable Performance ◽  
Colony Performance ◽  
Size Diversity ◽  
Individual Effort ◽  
Bee Colonies

ABSTRACTSpecialization and plasticity are important for many forms of collective behavior, but the interplay between these factors is little understood. In insect societies, workers are often predisposed to specialize in different tasks, sometimes with morphological or physiological adaptations, facilitating a division of labor. Workers may also plastically switch between tasks or vary their effort. The degree to which predisposed specialization limits plasticity is not clear and has not been systematically tested in ecologically relevant contexts. We addressed this question in 20 freely-foraging bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) colonies by continually manipulating colonies to contain either a typically diverse or reduced (“homogeneous”) worker body size distribution, over two trials. Pooling both trials, diverse colonies did better in several indices of colony performance. The importance of body size was further demonstrated by the finding that foragers were larger than nurses even in homogeneous colonies with a very narrow body size range. However, the overall effect of size diversity stemmed mostly from one trial. In the other trial, homogeneous and diverse colonies showed comparable performance. By comparing behavioral profiles based on several thousand observations, we found evidence that workers in homogeneous colonies in this trial rescued colony performance by plastically increasing behavioral specialization and/or individual effort, compared to same-sized individuals in diverse colonies. Our results are consistent with a benefit to colonies of predisposed (size-diverse) specialists under certain conditions, but also suggest that plasticity or effort, can compensate for reduced (size-related) specialization. Thus, we suggest that an intricate interplay between specialization and plasticity is functionally adaptive in bumble bee colonies.

Immunocompetence in workers of a social insect, Bombus terrestris L., in relation to foraging activity and parasitic infection

2000 ◽  
Vol 78 (6) ◽  
pp. 1060-1066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudie Doums ◽  
Paul Schmid-Hempel
Keyword(s):  
Immune Response ◽  
Immune Responses ◽  
Intestinal Parasite ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Parasitic Infection ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Immune Defence ◽  
Foraging Activity ◽  
Natural Conditions ◽  
Crithidia Bombi

The immune system is a general mechanism that reduces the fitness cost of parasitism. In this study, we examined variation in immune responses under natural conditions in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. Using 14 colonies reared in the field, we compared the immune response to an artificial implant between workers that could or could not forage (86 control and 91 nonforaging workers). Foraging activity was prevented by cutting a large part of the wings. As expected, control workers had lower immune responses than nonforaging workers in 10 of 14 colonies. Overall, the treatment effect was significant even though weak, suggestive of a trade-off between immune defence and foraging activity. We also examined the environmental factors that might covary with the immune response in workers. The immune response significantly decreased in workers that were naturally infected by the intestinal parasite Crithidia bombi and increased with a measure of colony success, the maximum number of workers. These correlations suggest that the strength of immune responses reflects individual, and hence colony condition.

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