EvMed Double-header Tuesday

Nov 17 at 11 am ET: ClubEvMed Social immunity: cooperative disease defense in social insect colonies with Sylvia Cremer https://sites.duke.edu/clubevmed/upcoming/

Nov 17 at noon ET: HBES Roundtable discussion on Life History Theory as Applied to Inter-Individual Variation. https://www.crowdcast.io/e/hbes-roundtable-seminar/2 with Marco Del Giudice, Keelah Williams, Daniel Nettle, and Rebecca Sear, moderated by Willem Frankenhuis. https://www.crowdcast.io/e/hbes-roundtable-seminar/2

Both are free, but advance registration is required

ClubEvMed Tuesday, November 17th at 11am EST

Join us for a presentation by Sylvia Cremer, Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, followed by a conversation with Nathalie Stroeymeyt, Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol, and Chris Pull, Lecturer at the University of Oxford. Infectious disease can easily spread when hosts live in social groups. On the other hand, the members of social groups can fight disease together. The social insects — the social bees and wasps, ants and termites — have evolved a special form of social group living: the colony. Dr. Cremer will present how ant colonies are protected against disease by the combination of the individual immune defenses of all colony members and their collective hygiene behaviors performed jointly or towards one another. This social immunity is achieved by cooperative actions to reduce pathogen load of the colony and to prevent transmission along the social interaction networks of colony members. Attendees are encouraged to read Cremer 2019, “Social immunity in insects,” Stroeymeyt et al. 2018, “Social network plasticity decreases disease transmission in a eusocial insect,” and Konrad et al. 2012 “Social transfer of pathogenic fungus promotes active immunization in ant colonies.” Sign up here for the meeting link.