Ants and Disease Transmission

   by  tarotastic 

Entomology and Biology professor David Hughes from Penn State was given the lead to find out if ants can teach us about the spread of disease in certain environments, such as large communal groups and offices. The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health granted Dr. Hughes and his team a $1.8 million grant under the Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases research initiative. The initiative "supports efforts to understand the underlying ecological and biological mechanisms that govern relationships between human-induced environmental changes and the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases."

The researchers will introduce various agents to ants and track the transmission. By varying the colony size and complexity, they hope to produce a mathematical model to expain the spread of diseases in populations that can eventually be used to predict transmission routes of human pathogens and help manage outbreaks. The team believes that ants can provide a reliable interactive community which to base the model on. Ants can be manipulated and colony size and structure can easily be changed to fit the goals of the researchers, and they're behavior is similar to other social groups.

A positive side effect of the study is an in-depth look at ant colony interactions. The social structures and methods of carrying out tasks could lead to a better understanding of how colonies react to insecticides that could be used to create more effective means of controlling pest ant species. The mathematical model of transmission could also be applied to livestock and agricultural diseases, leading to better prevention strategies and healthier animals and crops.

Penn State Study
Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Initiative