Different strategies between queens and workers against fungal pathogens in the termite Reticulitermes chinensis

Social insects are prone to pathogen infection because of high exposure rates from social interactions. However, it remains unclear whether queens have enhanced pathogen resistance, since reproduction is largely confined to queens. Here, we used a natural host-pathogen system, the subterranean termite Reticulitermes chinensis and the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae, to investigate the differences in allo-grooming, locomotion, and immune gene expression between queens and workers against pathogen infection. We found that fungal infection significantly reduced survival in both queens and workers. Infected queens received significantly more grooming time from sanitary nestmates than infected workers, but they returned much less grooming time to sanitary nestmates than infected workers. Infection resulted in a reduction in the average locomotion speed and distance of queens but had no effect on worker locomotion. Infection resulted in upregulated expression of two immune gene..., Study termites: Two colonies of R. chinensis were collected from Lion Mountain, Wuhan, China in 2022. Adult termites were split out from the cracks of dead wood and each 50 individuals (48 workers and 2 soldiers) were housed in a 6-cm Petri dish containing moist filter paper as a food and water source. Each colony was divided into 60 sub-colonies (120 sub-colonies in total). All sub-colonies were kept in a climatic chamber (25oC, 70% relative humidity, 12 h day/night cycle). Once a week, we checked the consumption of a piece of moist filter paper and provided corresponding supplements. Previous studies have shown that workers of R. chinensis are able to develop into neotenics (supplementary reproductive) when the primary queen dies or is lost (Su et al., 2015). Here, in our observations, after about three weeks, the workers will differentiated into neotenics. We classed the neotenics as queens for all experiments. These all sub-colonies with a queen were used for the following experimen..., , # \*Different strategies between queens and workers against fungal pathogens in the termite *Reticulitermes chinensis*

 

**Datasets included:**

a. **Survival**

b. **Allogrooming and Locomotion**

c. **Gene expression**

\** **

**DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: Survival**

1\. Number of variables: 6

2\. Number of cases/rows: 24

3\. Variable List:

* Individual_Group: individual rearing or group rearing.

* Days: day of the study.

* num_infected_queens: number of infected queens death per day

* num_infected_workers: number of infected workers death per day

* num_control_queens: number of control queens death per day

* num_control_workers: number of control workers death per day

4\. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used: None

 

**DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: Allogrooming and Locomotion**

1\. Number of variables: 11

2\. Number of cases/rows: 24

3\. Variable List:

* Control_Infected: the termite infected with Tween 80 (control) or *M. anis...