Abstract：
Wolbachia is a widespread maternally transmitted endosymbiotic bacteria with diverse phenotypic effects on its insect hosts, ranging from parasitic to mutualistic. Wolbachia commonly infects social insects, where it faces unique challenges associated with its host\'s caste-based reproductive division of labor and colony living. Here, we dissect the benefits and costs of Wolbachia infection on life-history traits of the invasive pharaoh ant, Monomorium pharaonis, which are relatively short lived and show natural variation in Wolbachia infection status between colonies. We quantified the effects of Wolbachia infection on the lifespan of queen and worker castes, the egg-laying rate of queens across queen lifespan, and the metabolic rates of whole colonies and colony members. Infected queens laid more eggs than uninfected queens but had similar metabolic rates and lifespans. Interestingly, infected workers outlived uninfected workers. At the colony level, infected colonies were more productive as a consequence of increased queen egg-laying rates and worker longevity, and infected colonies had higher metabolic rates during peak colony productivity. While some effects of infection, such as elevated colony-level metabolic rates, may be detrimental in more stressful natural conditions, we did not find any costs of infection under relatively benign laboratory conditions. Overall, our study emphasizes that Wolbachia infection can have beneficial effects on ant colony growth and worker survival in at least some environments.
摘要：
Wolbachia是一种广泛的母体传播的内共生细菌，对其昆虫宿主具有不同的表型效应，从寄生到互惠。沃尔巴克氏菌通常会感染社会性昆虫，在那里，它面临着与其宿主基于种姓的生殖分工和殖民地生活相关的独特挑战。在这里，我们根据侵袭性法老蚂蚁的生活史特征剖析了沃尔巴克氏菌感染的收益和成本，法老院，它们的寿命相对较短，并且在菌落之间显示出Wolbachia感染状态的自然变化。我们量化了Wolbachia感染对女王和工人种姓寿命的影响，女王一生中的产卵率，以及整个菌落和菌落成员的代谢率。受感染的皇后比未感染的皇后产卵更多，但代谢率和寿命相似。有趣的是,受感染的工人比未感染的工人活得多。在殖民地一级，由于女王产卵率和工人寿命的增加，受感染的菌落生产力更高，和感染的菌落在高峰菌落生产力期间具有较高的代谢率。虽然感染的一些影响，例如，在压力更大的自然条件下，菌落水平的代谢率升高可能是有害的，在相对良性的实验室条件下，我们没有发现任何感染费用。总的来说,我们的研究强调,至少在某些环境中,Wolbachia感染可对蚁群生长和工人生存产生有益影响.
