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SUMMARY:Social Immunity: the colony-wide immune system of insect colonies
   - Sylvia Cremer\, Institute of Science and Technology Austria
DTSTART:20250429T120000Z
DTEND:20250429T130000Z
UID:TALK231157@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Henry North
DESCRIPTION:Social insects fight disease together. They are protected agai
 nst disease not only by their individual immunity\, but also their collect
 ive and cooperative hygiene and sanitary care\, providing social immunity 
 to the colony. These colony-level disease defences show an amazingly simil
 ar organisation to the immune system of individual organisms. This is beca
 use insect colonies form “superorganisms”\, where the individual insec
 ts – just like cells within a body – specialise on either reproduction
  (the queen resp. germline) or maintenance (the sterile workers resp. soma
 ). The fitness of each individual is therefore strictly connected to the o
 verall fitness of the colony\, promoting unconditional cooperation between
  colony members. This resulted in the evolution of highly sophisticated co
 lony disease defences\, including hygienic suicide by social apoptosis and
  altruistic ‘find me and eat me’ signalling of infected individuals.
LOCATION:Part II Lecture Theatre\, Department of Zoology
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