Social insects are the most dominant terrestrial fauna for the last 50 million years. This tremendous ecological success is accompanied by the fact that sociality has evolved multiple times independently and achieved highest ...

A striking feature of hymenopterans societies is the absence of male workers. Foraging, nest building, brood care and all other activities required for the functioning of the colony are carried out by the females. These ...

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 ...

Ropalidia marginata is characterized as a primitively eusocial wasp due to the absence of morphological differentiation between the queen and worker castes. Unlike other primitively eusocial wasps, however, the queen in ...

Many animals live in societies of varying degrees of organization. Some individuals in these societies seem to sacrifice their own fitness to increase the fitness of some others. Understanding the forces that mould the ...