TY - CONF A1 - Martens, Birte T1 - The evolution of symbiont and immune system interactions in Blattodea N2 - Immunity plays an important role in evolutionary ecology. The immune system interacts with both pathogens, which can act as important selective forces, and symbionts, which are regulated by the host‘s immune system and can also play a role in the host‘s immune defenses. The Blattodea consist of what is commonly known as cockroaches and the termites, who are themselves specialized eusocial cockroaches. Blattodea have two symbiont types that are characteristic to either the cockroaches or the termites (Table 1). These symbiont transitions open up the opportunity to characterize and investigate host-symbiont-pathogen interactions and how they evolved in Blattodea. T2 - Ecological Immunology Workshop 2025 CY - Joachimsthal, Germany DA - 15.09.2025 KW - Evolution KW - Cockroaches KW - Immunity KW - Symbionts KW - Host-Symbiont-Interactions PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-64971 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Martens, Birte T1 - The evolution of symbiont and immune system interactions in Blattodea N2 - Immunity plays an important role in evolutionary ecology. The immune system interacts with both pathogens, which can act as important selective forces, and symbionts, which are regulated by the host‘s immune system and also can play a role in the host‘s immune defenses. The Blattodea consist of what is commonly known as cockroaches and the termites, who are themselves specialized eusocial cockroaches. Blattodea have two symbiont types that are characteristic to either the cockroaches or the termites (Table 1). These symbiont transitions open up the opportunity to characterize and investigate host-symbiont-pathogen interactions and how they evolved in Blattodea. T2 - Insect Infect Meeting 2025 CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 07.04.2025 KW - Evolution KW - Cockroaches KW - Immunity KW - Symbionts KW - Host-Symbiont-Interactions PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-64970 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter T1 - Termite Immunity (a molecular perspective) N2 - In this presentation, an overview of the termite immune system is given. The presentation covers the mechanistic underpinnings of the canonical immune pathways in insects; where there are areas of conservation or divergence in termites, as well as briefly going over some key gaps in knowledge. External immune capabilities are discussed as well as the implications and consequences of sociality for the evolution of collective immune defense systems in termites. T2 - International Termite Course (ITC) 2025 CY - Davie, FL, USA DA - 10.06.2025 KW - Termite KW - Immunity KW - Molecular KW - Evolution PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-64745 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Aumont, Cédric T1 - Exploring the evolution of termite immunity across phylogeny, sociality and foraging behaviour N2 - The phylogeny of the Blattodea boasts a wide degree of sociality spanning from solitary cockroaches to advanced ecosystem-dominating termite societies. The emergence of sociality in termites was associated with the acquisition of a diverse range of social structures and caste-specific behaviours. From wood-dwelling to fungus-growing and cooperative scouting, termite foraging strategies require different immune defences to confront the diverse pathogens found in the foraging environment. Previous work has found evidence for a caste-specific social defence system in termites leading to an immune system that may favour group over individual defence. While preliminary work suggests a correlation between social transitions and a reduction of immune gene family diversity, the lack of available high-quality termite genomes hampers complete knowledge of the true diversity of immune gene evolution across termite phylogeny. Here, we report on the sequencing and near-chromosome level assembly of 47 high-quality long-read-based genomes across major termite and cockroach sister-branch lineages. We investigate the diversity and evolutionary history of immune genes across genomes, focusing on correlations between immune gene evolution, transitions in sociality and foraging behaviour diversity over termite phylogeny. T2 - ASAB Spring Meeting CY - Exeter, UK DA - 23.04.2024 KW - Termite KW - Immunity PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-61695 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -