Data from: Personality composition alters the transmission of cuticular bacteria in social groups

The initial stages of a disease outbreak can determine the magnitude of an epidemic. Though rarely tested in unison, two factors with important consequences for the infectious transmission dynamics are the traits of the susceptible population and the traits of the index case (i.e., “patient zero”). Here, we test whether the behavioural composition of a social group can explain horizontal transmission dynamics of cuticular bacteria using a social spider. We exposed focal spiders of known behavioural types with a GFP-transformed cuticular bacterium (Pantoea sp.) and placed them in groups of 10 susceptible individuals. We measured bacterial transmission to susceptible spiders composed of either all shy spiders, 10% bold spiders, or 40% bold spiders. We found that colonies with 40% bold spiders experienced over twice the incidence of transmission compared to colonies with just 10% bold individuals after only 24hr of interaction. Colonies of all shy spiders experienced an intermediate degree of transmission. Interestingly, we did not detect an effect of the traits of the index case on transmission. These data suggest that the phenotypic composition of the susceptible population can have a greater influence on the degree of early transmission events than the traits of the index case.

疾病暴发的初始阶段可决定流行病的规模。尽管鲜有研究同时对二者进行验证，但影响传染病传播动力学的两个关键因素分别为易感种群的特征，以及指示病例（index case，即“零号患者”）的特征。本研究以社会性蜘蛛为实验模型，探究社会群体的行为组成能否解释表皮细菌的水平传播动力学。我们用经绿色荧光蛋白（GFP）转化的表皮泛菌（Pantoea sp.）处理已知行为类型的目标蜘蛛，随后将其与10只易感个体组成群体。我们测量了细菌向三类易感蜘蛛群体的传播情况：群体全部由害羞型个体组成、仅含10%大胆型个体，或含40%大胆型个体。实验结果显示，仅经过24小时的相互作用后，含40%大胆型个体的蜘蛛群体，其细菌传播发生率是仅含10%大胆型个体群体的两倍以上。全部由害羞型个体组成的群体，其细菌传播程度则处于中间水平。值得注意的是，我们未检测到指示病例的特征对传播过程产生的显著影响。本研究数据表明，易感种群的表型组成，对早期传播事件的影响程度要大于指示病例的特征。