Altruism is defined as a trait in an individual that increases some other individual’s fitness at the expense of her own. Therefore, existence of such traits in a population is an evolutionary paradox, as natural selection ...

Division of labour is a hallmark of eusocial insects and is believed to be a major factor in their evolutionary success and ecological dominance. Division of labour can be of two kinds – reproductive division of labour ...

This thesis has looked at the proximate mechanisms by which eusociality is maintained in colonies of the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata. Unlike other typical primitively eusocial species, the R, marginata ...

In societies where all individuals are reproductively totipotent and yet, at a given time only one of them reproduces, it is interesting to examine the factor(s) that may influence and predict who will be the reproductive. ...

Altruism in its extreme form is seen in social insects where most individuals give up their own reproduction and work to rear the offspring of their queen. The origin and evolution of such sterile worker castes remains a ...

For most of the animals, if not all, finding their way to a particular place is crucial for survival. To address this challenge of way-finding, different animals have evolved with different homing strategies. Social ...