Parasitic influences on an animal society

Objective

Parasites are direct agents of natural selection, having significant effects on the reproductive success, life-history traits and phenotype of their hosts. Social insect colonies, by living in high density group of close relative individuals, offer favourable conditions for the spread of parasites. In response to infection, both infected and uninfected individuals exhibit behavioural changes that seem to reduce the risk of infection and the transmission of parasites. In order to shed new light on the interaction between social insect and their parasites we propose to study the consequences of ants' infection by two directly transmitted parasites a fungi and a bacteria. Trough comprehensive experimentation we will elucidate how infection affects host individuals and the whole colony at the chemical, behavioural and immune level. For the first time, we will explore the mechanisms responsible for the detection of infected individuals and the potential proximate causal link between the infection and the behavioural modifications. In addition, we will investigate whether changes in behaviour benefit the host as suggested by numerous studies or can be parasite adaptation aiming at increasing transmission. The proposed project will be the first to investigate whether ants immune response can be observed after exposition to chemicals extracted from infected individual. This multidisciplinary approach will significantly stimulate innovative and creative research in, for instance, providing insight into how group living may improve the survivorship of colony members despite the increased risks of parasite transmission that can accompany sociality

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

• natural sciences biological sciences microbiology bacteriology
• natural sciences biological sciences microbiology mycology
• medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology
• natural sciences biological sciences zoology entomology

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

• Behavioural Ecology
• Chemical Ecology
• Host-parasites interactions
• Immunology
• Insect society

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008 - Marie Curie Action: "Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development"

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator