The evolution of eusociality in insects represents a pivotal transition in biological organisation. Ants, bees, wasps and termites form colonies that function as superorganisms, with cooperative brood ...

A major characteristic of so-called eusocial species is the division of labor between queens that lay eggs and workers that take care of the brood and perform other tasks. But what is it that ...

Ant colonies with a higher degree of genetic diversity thrive better than those that consist of individuals with more similar genetic backgrounds. This is the conclusion of an experimental study in ...

Eusocial animals express complex behaviors, like group decision-making. Evolutionary biologists have asked how and why eusociality has evolved, and what we can learn from eusocial organisms. Aa Aa Aa ...

One phenomenon that already fascinated Charles Darwin is the evolution of huge, complex insect societies from solitary ancestors. This was the case with termites and ants, which have the same eusocial ...

The commonly held view that differences in DNA methylation can determine whether a social insect becomes an egg-laying queen or a nest-tending worker has come under fire from researchers in ...

In a recent article published in Nature Communications, researchers used Camponotus fellah (carpenter ants) as a model species to perform behavioral tracking and ribonucleic acid-sequencing (RNA-seq) ...

One of the great puzzles of evolutionary biology is what induced certain living creatures to abandon solitary existence in favor of living in collaborative societies, as seen in the case of ants and ...

How did huge, complex insect societies evolve from solitary ancestors? This was the case with termites and ants, which have the same eusocial lifestyle, including for instance a complex system of ...