Altruistic self-removal of health-compromised honey bee workers from their hive

Social insect colonies represent distinct units of selection. Most individuals evolve by kin selection and forgo individual reproduction. Instead, they display altruistic food sharing, nest maintenance and self-sacrificial colony defence. Recently, altruistic self-removal of diseased worker ants fro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of evolutionary biology Vol. 23; no. 7; pp. 1538 - 1546
Main Authors: RUEPPELL, O, HAYWORTH, M.K, ROSS, N.P
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford, UK Oxford, UK : Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.07.2010
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Oxford University Press
Subjects:
Altruism
Analysis of Variance
Animal behavior
Animals
Apis mellifera
Bees
Bees - drug effects
Bees - physiology
Carbon Dioxide
Colonies
colony collapse disorder
colony defense
Disease transmission
drug effects
Evolutionary biology
Feeding
Forage
Formicidae
Honey
host-pathogen relationships
host–pathogen interactions
Hydroxyurea
Hydroxyurea - toxicity
hygienic behaviour
immune function
immunity
insect colonies
Insects
Kin selection
longevity
Models, Biological
Mortality
Nesting Behavior
Nesting Behavior - drug effects
Nesting Behavior - physiology
nests
physiology
Reproduction
Selection, Genetic
Selection, Genetic - physiology
social evolution
social insects
Suicide
Suicides & suicide attempts
Theory
toxicity
worker honey bees
Workers
ISSN:1010-061X, 1420-9101, 1420-9101
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Social insect colonies represent distinct units of selection. Most individuals evolve by kin selection and forgo individual reproduction. Instead, they display altruistic food sharing, nest maintenance and self-sacrificial colony defence. Recently, altruistic self-removal of diseased worker ants from their colony was described as another important kin-selected behaviour. Here, we report corroborating experimental evidence from honey bee foragers and theoretical analyses. We challenged honey bee foragers with prolonged CO₂ narcosis or by feeding with the cytostatic drug hydroxyurea. Both treatments resulted in increased mortality but also caused the surviving foragers to abandon their social function and remove themselves from their colony, resulting in altruistic suicide. A simple model suggests that altruistic self-removal by sick social insect workers to prevent disease transmission is expected under most biologically plausible conditions. The combined theoretical and empirical support for altruistic self-removal suggests that it may be another important kin-selected behaviour and a potentially widespread mechanism of social immunity.
Bibliography:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02022.x
Present address: Miranda K. Hayworth, Medical College of Georgia, School of Medicine, Augusta, GA 30912, USA.
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 14
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-2
ISSN:1010-061X
1420-9101
1420-9101
DOI:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02022.x