Sublethal costs of infection reduce performance of collective tasks in social insects: a modelling study.
4 affiliations
- 1Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA USA.
- 2Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases, University of Georgia, Athens, GA USA.
- 3Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY USA.
- 4Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Georgia, Athens, GA USA.
Abstract
Group living confers benefits such as improved foraging efficiency, but social insects also face costs, including increased risk of parasitism. Infection can alter individual and social behaviours, potentially reducing the performance of collective tasks through impaired individual performance, reduced recruitment, and disrupted information transfer. Alternatively, interactions with uninfected groupmates may buffer these effects by facilitating social learning. However, we lack a mechanistic framework for quantifying how infection influences collective behaviours through direct and socially mediated effects. We developed an agent-based model, parameterized for the ant Temnothorax rugatulus, to investigate how infection influences collective foraging. We varied the magnitude of behavioural costs and infection prevalence and recorded effects on colony performance and reciprocal effects of infected individuals on uninfected individuals (and vice-versa). Individual-level behavioural costs had the greatest impact on collective performance when they occurred early in the foraging process, while reduced recruitment further amplified these effects. We also found reciprocal effects between infected and uninfected ants that scale with infection prevalence, suggesting social interactions can buffer declines in colony performance only when infection levels are low. Our study provides a mechanistic understanding of how infection-related changes in behaviour can impact groups, with important consequences for fitness of group-living insects.
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BibTeX
@article{rajagopal2026sublethal,
title = {{Sublethal costs of infection reduce performance of collective tasks in social insects: a modelling study.}},
author = {Supraja Rajagopal and Takao Sasaki and Richard J Hall},
journal = {Npj entomology},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1038/s44434-026-00007-z},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42996312},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Sublethal costs of infection reduce performance of collective tasks in social insects: a modelling study.
AU - Supraja Rajagopal
AU - Takao Sasaki
AU - Richard J Hall
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/05
JO - Npj entomology
DO - 10.1038/s44434-026-00007-z
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42996312
AB - Group living confers benefits such as improved foraging efficiency, but social insects also face costs, including increased risk of parasitism. Infection can alter individual and social behaviours, potentially reducing the performance of collective tasks through impaired individual performance, reduced recruitment, and disrupted information transfer. Alternatively, interactions with uninfected groupmates may buffer these effects by facilitating social learning. However, we lack a mechanistic framework for quantifying how infection influences collective behaviours through direct and socially mediated effects. We developed an agent-based model, parameterized for the ant Temnothorax rugatulus, to investigate how infection influences collective foraging. We varied the magnitude of behavioural costs and infection prevalence and recorded effects on colony performance and reciprocal effects of infected individuals on uninfected individuals (and vice-versa). Individual-level behavioural costs had the greatest impact on collective performance when they occurred early in the foraging process, while reduced recruitment further amplified these effects. We also found reciprocal effects between infected and uninfected ants that scale with infection prevalence, suggesting social interactions can buffer declines in colony performance only when infection levels are low. Our study provides a mechanistic understanding of how infection-related changes in behaviour can impact groups, with important consequences for fitness of group-living insects.
SN - 3059-3298
ER -