Full text

Turn on search term navigation

© 2019 Stucki et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Organisms are simultaneously exposed to multiple stresses, which requires regulation of the resistance to each stress. Starvation is one of the most severe stresses organisms encounter, yet nutritional state is also one of the most crucial conditions on which other stress resistances depend. Concomitantly, organisms often deploy lower immune defenses when deprived of resources. This indicates that the investment into starvation resistance and immune defenses is likely to be subject to trade-offs. Here, we investigated the impact of starvation and oral exposure to bacteria on survival and gene expression in the ant Formica exsecta. Of the three bacteria used in this study, only Serratia marcescens increased the mortality of the ants, whereas exposure to Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas entomophila alleviated the effects of starvation. Both exposure to bacteria and starvation induced changes in gene expression, but in different directions depending on the species of bacteria used, as well as on the nutritional state of the ants.

Details

Title
Stress responses upon starvation and exposure to bacteria in the ant Formica exsecta
Author
Stucki, Dimitri; Freitak, Dalial; Bos, Nick; Sundström, Liselotte
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Feb 18, 2019
Publisher
PeerJ, Inc.
e-ISSN
21678359
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2183043854
Copyright
© 2019 Stucki et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.