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Fitness costs associated with mounting a social immune response
Author(s) -
Cotter S. C.,
Topham E.,
Price A. J. P.,
Kilner R. M.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01500.x
Subject(s) - carrion , biology , inclusive fitness , ecology , immunity , immune system , resource (disambiguation) , eusociality , zoology , immunology , hymenoptera , computer network , computer science
Ecology Letters (2010) 13: 1114–1123 Abstract Social immune systems comprise immune defences mounted by individuals for the benefit of others ( sensu Cotter & Kilner 2010a). Just as with other forms of immunity, mounting a social immune response is expected to be costly but so far these fitness costs are unknown. We measured the costs of social immunity in a sub‐social burying beetle, a species in which two or more adults defend a carrion breeding resource for their young by smearing the flesh with antibacterial anal exudates. Our experiments on widowed females reveal that a bacterial challenge to the breeding resource upregulates the antibacterial activity of a female’s exudates, and this subsequently reduces her lifetime reproductive success. We suggest that the costliness of social immunity is a source of evolutionary conflict between breeding adults on a carcass, and that the phoretic communities that the beetles transport between carrion may assist the beetle by offsetting these costs.