Host-associated beneficial gut microbiota boosts induced immunity and limits immune deployment costs in bumblebees

Ecological immunology posits that variation in host resistance to infection may be attributed partly to the ecological and evolutionary costs of immunity. While the deployment of immune defense is necessary to combat pathogenic infection, host pay energetic and other costs for activation. Host-associated beneficial microbiota have been shown to affect multiple host traits, including immunity, but how interactions with these microbial communities may mitigate the costs of immune activation remains an open question. For apid bees, including eusocial bumblebees, core members of the adult gut microbiota contribute to a variety of fitness-relevant traits and provide a key ecological and evolutionary relationship contributing to ecological success. Here, we test the hypothesis that the host-associated microbiota provides benefits to bumble bee immunity, including the mitigation of the costs associated with inducible immune responses. Freshly emerged germ-free adult workers were supplemented w..., , # Data from: Host-associated beneficial gut microbiota boosts induced immunity and limits immune deployment costs in bumblebees

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.ncjsxkt8v](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ncjsxkt8v)

## Description of the data and file structure

To assess the effects of the native microbiota on functional immunity and the cost of immune deployment for bumblebee survival, otherwise microbiota-free workers were supplemented or left naturally deprived of their native microbiota immediately following adult eclosion. At a fixed later time point, allowing for microbial colonization of supplemented bees, individuals were injected with a heat-killed bacteria cocktail to stimulate an immune response. Immune-challenged individuals from the two microbiota treatments (i.e., supplemented versus deprived) had their hemolymph extracted two days post challenge for functional immune assays. In a separate experiment assessing the cost of immune activation, an uninjected naïve group was include...,