Data from: Queen presence mediates the relationship between collective behavior and disease susceptibility in ant colonies

The success of social living can be explained, in part, by a group's ability to execute collective behaviors unachievable by solitary individuals. However, groups vary in their ability to execute these complex behaviors, often because they vary in their phenotypic composition. Group membership changes over time due to mortality or emigration, potentially leaving groups vulnerable to ecological challenges in times of flux. In some societies, the loss of important individuals (e.g., leaders, elites, queens) may have an especially detrimental effect on groups’ ability to deal with these challenges. Here, we test whether the removal of queens in colonies of the acorn ant Temnothorax curvispinosus alters their ability to execute important collective behaviors and survive outbreaks of a generalist entomopathogen. We employed a split-colony design where one half of a colony was maintained with its queen, while the other half was separated from the queen. We then tested these subcolonies’ performance in a series of collective behavior assays and finally exposed colonies to the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium robertsii by exposing two individuals from the colony and then sealing them back into the nest. We found that queenright subcolonies outperformed their queenless counterparts in nearly all collective behaviors. Queenless subcolonies were also more vulnerable to mortality from disease. However, queenless groups that displayed more interactions with brood experienced greater survivorship, a trend not present in queenright subcolonies. Queenless subcolonies that engage in more brood interactions may have had more resources available to cope with two physiological challenges (ovarian development after queen loss and immune activation after pathogen exposure). Our results indicate that queen presence can play an integral role in colony behavior, survivorship, and their relationship. They also suggest that interactions between workers and brood are integral to colonies survival. Overall, a social group's history of social reorganization may have strong consequences on their collective behaviors and their vulnerability to disease outbreaks.社会群居的成功，在一定程度上可归因于群体执行独居个体无法达成的集体行为的能力。然而，不同群体执行这类复杂行为的能力存在差异，这往往源于其表型组成（phenotypic composition）的不同。群体成员身份会因死亡或迁出随时间发生变化，这可能使群体在动态变化时期易受生态挑战威胁。在部分社会类群中，重要个体（如领导者、精英、蚁后）的流失，对群体应对这些挑战的能力可能产生尤为严重的负面影响。 本研究旨在探究，移除弯刺细胸蚁（Temnothorax curvispinosus）蚁群中的蚁后，是否会改变其执行关键集体行为的能力，以及应对广谱昆虫病原微生物（entomopathogen）爆发的存活能力。 我们采用分群实验设计：将一个蚁群分为两部分，一部分保留蚁后进行饲养，另一部分则与蚁后分离。随后，我们通过一系列集体行为实验检测这些亚群的表现，并最终通过将两只来自蚁群的个体暴露于昆虫病原真菌——罗伯茨绿僵菌（Metarhizium robertsii）中，再将其放回巢穴的方式，对整个蚁群进行病原暴露处理。 我们发现，有蚁后亚群在几乎所有集体行为测试中均优于无蚁后亚群。无蚁后亚群的疾病致死率也更高。不过，在无蚁后群体中，与子代虫态（brood）互动频次更高的亚群存活情况更佳，这一趋势在有蚁后亚群中并未出现。与子代虫态互动更多的无蚁后亚群，或许拥有更多资源来应对两项生理挑战：蚁后缺失后的卵巢发育，以及病原暴露后的免疫激活。 我们的研究结果表明，蚁后的存在对蚁群的行为、存活及其二者间的关联至关重要。研究还显示，工蚁与子代虫态的互动对蚁群存活具有关键作用。总体而言，社会群体的社会重组历程，可能对其集体行为以及应对疾病爆发的脆弱性产生显著影响。