Helping in spite of risk: Ants perform risk-averse sanitary care of infectious nest mates

(Institute of Science and Technology Austria) Ants care for their sick nest mates in different ways, depending on their own immune status. When they themselves are susceptible to dangerous superinfections, they use a different method to care for sick colony members compared to ants that are not susceptible, thus protecting themselves from infection. This is the result of a study of Professor Sylvia Cremer's research group at IST Austria, with first authors Matthias Konrad and Christopher Pull published today in PNAS.
Source: EurekAlert! - Biology - Category: Biology Source Type: news