Effects of the antFormica fuscaon the transmission of microsporidia infecting gypsy moth larvae.
Transmission plays an integral part in the intimate relationship between a host insect and its pathogen that can be altered by abiotic or biotic factors. The latter include other pathogens, parasitoids, or predators. Ants are important species in food webs that act on various levels in a community structure. Their social behavior allows them to prey on and transport larger prey, or they can dismember the prey where it was found. Thereby they can also influence the horizontal transmission of a pathogen in its host's population. We tested the hypothesis that an ant species likeFormica fuscaL. (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) can affect the horizontal transmission of two microsporidian pathogens,Nosema lymantriaeWeiser (Microsporidia: Nosematidae) andVairimorpha disparis(Timofejeva) (Microsporidia: Burenellidae), infecting the gypsy moth,Lymantria disparL. (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Lymantriinae). Observational studies showed that uninfected and infectedL. disparlarvae are potential prey items forF. fusca. Laboratory choice experiments led to the conclusion thatF. fuscadid not preferL. disparlarvae infected withN. lymantriaeand avoidedL. disparlarvae infected withV. disparisover uninfected larvae when given the choice. Experiments carried out on small potted oak,Quercus petraea(Mattuschka) Liebl. (Fagaceae), saplings showed that predation ofF. fuscaon infected larvae did not significantly change the transmission of either microsporidian species toL. dispartest larvae. Microscopic examination indicated thatF. fuscaworkers never became infected withN. lymantriaeorV. disparisafter feeding on infected prey.
Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, BOKU - University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Hasenauerstraße 38, Vienna, 1190, Austria.
Dörte
D
Goertz
Gernot
G
Hoch
Burenellidae; Erebidae; Formicidae; Hymenoptera; Lepidoptera; Lymantria dispar; Nosema lymantriae; Nosematidae; Vairimorpha disparis; horizontal transmission; host-pathogen interaction; predation