Alghamdi, A., Raine, N. E., Rosato, E. and Mallon, E. B. (2009) No evidence for an evolutionary trade-off between learning and immunity in a social insect. Biology Letters, 5
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The immune response affects learning and memory in insects. Given this and the known fitness costs of both the immune system and learning, does an evolutionary trade-off exist between these two systems? We tested this by measuring the learning ability of twelve bumble-bee (Bombus terrestris) colonies in a free-flying paradigm. We then tested their immune response using the zone of inhibition assay. We found a positive relationship between colony learning performance and immune response, that is, fast learning colonies also show high levels of antimicrobial activity. We conclude that there is no a priori reason to demand an evolutionary relationship between two traits that are linked physiologically.
This is a Submitted version This version's date is: 2009 This item is not peer reviewed
https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/510c02a3-7685-207f-373e-8bdd23f16810/4/
Deposited by Research Information System (atira) on 03-Jul-2014 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 03-Jul-2014