Social Evolution: Sick Ants Face Death Alone

Social insects not only live altruistically, they die so: a new study reveals that moribund ants abandon their nests to die in seclusion, which reduces the risk of transmitting diseases to relatives. 

Workers of social insects are famous for being selfless. They build the nest, collect food, rear the young and defend the colony. Most of them do not reproduce, but help to rear non-descendant kin, who share copies of their genes. The protection of kin can take spectacular forms: termites explode during fights, bees die after stinging, or ants condemn themselves by sealing the nest from the outside. In this issue of Current Biology, Heinze and Walter document a more discreet form of self-sacrifice: ant workers infected by a fungal pathogen abandon their nest to die in social isolation. 

Current Biology Vol 20 No 3

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