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\"Many insects work together to survive. Engaging text and exciting images help give readers a close-up look at bees, wasps, termites, and ants. They will discover how these insects organize their groups into a social order. Each insect plays a particular role within their group and cooperates in order to complete daily tasks and increase the group's chances of survival.\"-- Provided by publisher.

All evidence currently available indicates that obligatory sterile eusocial castes only arose via the association of lifetime monogamous parents and offspring. This is consistent with Hamilton's rule (brs > roc), but implies that relatedness cancels out of the equation because average relatedness to siblings (rs) and offspring (ro) are both predictably 0.5. This equality implies that any infinitesimally small benefit of helping at the maternal nest (b), relative to the cost in personal reproduction (c) that persists throughout the lifespan of entire cohorts of helpers suffices to establish permanent eusociality, so that group benefits can increase gradually during, but mostly after the transition. The monogamy window can be conceptualized as a singularity comparable with the single zygote commitment of gametes in eukaryotes. The increase of colony size in ants, bees, wasps and termites is thus analogous to the evolution of multicellularity. Focusing on lifetime monogamy as a universal precondition for the evolution of obligate eusociality simplifies the theory and may help to resolve controversies about levels of selection and targets of adaptation. The monogamy window underlines that cooperative breeding and eusociality are different domains of social evolution, characterized by different sectors of parameter space for Hamilton's rule.

The giant honeybee Apis dorsata (Fabricius, 1793) is an evolutionarily ancient species that builds its nests in the open. The nest consists of a single honeycomb covered with the bee curtain which are several layers of worker bees that remain almost motionless with their heads up and abdomens down on the nest surface, except for the mouth area, the hub between inner- and outer-nest activities. A colony may change this semi-quiescence several times a day, depending on its reproductive state and ambient temperature, to enter the state of mass flight activity (MFA), in which nest organisation is restructured and defense ability is likely to be suppressed (predicted by the mass-flight-suspend-defensiveness hypothesis). For this study, three episode of MFA (mfa.sub.1-3) of a selected experimental nest were analysed in a case study with sequences of >60 000 images at 50 Hz, each comprise a short pre-MFA session, the MFA and the post-MFA phase of further 10 min. To test colony defensiveness under normative conditions, a dummy wasp was cyclically presented with a standardised motion programme (P.sub.d) with intervening sessions without such a presentation (nP.sub.d). Motion activity at five selected surveillance zones (sz.sub.1-5) on the nest were analysed. In contrast to mfa.sub.1,2, in mfa.sub.3 the experimental regime started with the cyclic presentation of the dummy wasp only after the MFA had subsided. As a result, the MFA intensity in mfa.sub.3 was significantly lower than in mfa.sub.1-2, suggesting that a colony is able to perceive external threats during the MFA. Characteristic ripples appear in the motion profiles, which can be interpreted as a start signal for the transition to MFA. Because they are strongest in the mouth zone and shift to higher frequencies on their way to the nest periphery, it can be concluded that MFA starts earlier in the mouth zone than in the peripheral zones, also suggesting that the mouth zone is a control centre for the scheduling of MFA. In P.sub.d phases of pre- and postMFA, the histogram-based motion spectra are biphasic, suggesting two cohorts in the process, one remaining at quiescence and the other involved in shimmering. Under MFA, nP.sub.d and P.sub.d spectra were typically Gaussian, suggesting that the nest mates with a uniform workload shifted to higher motion activity. At the end of the MFA, the spectra shift back to the lower motion activities and the P.sub.d spectra form a biphasic again. This happens a few minutes earlier in the peripheral zones than in the mouth zone. Using time profiles of the skewness of the P.sub.d motion spectra, the mass-flight-suspend-defensiveness hypothesis is confirmed, whereby the inhibition of defense ability was found to increase progressively during the MFA. These sawtooth-like time profiles of skewness during MFA show that defense capability is recovered again quite quickly at the end of MFA. Finally, with the help of the P.sub.d motion spectra, clear indications can be obtained that the giant honeybees engage in a decision in the sense of a tradeoff between MFA and collective defensiveness, especially in the regions in the periphery to the mouth zone.

Altruistic caste, including worker and soldier (derived from worker), plays a critical role in the ecological success of social insects. The proportion of soldiers, soldier sex ratios, and the number of workers vary significantly between species, and also within species, depending on colony developmental stage and environmental factors. However, it is unknown whether there are sex-linked effects from parents on controlling the caste fate or not. Here, we compared soldier sex ratios, soldier proportions, and population size among a four mating types of Reticulitermes amamianus (Ra) and R. speratus (Rs) (male x female, mRa x fRa, mRa x fRs, mRs x fRa, mRs x fRs) and demonstrate that the soldier sex ratio and worker population size of hybrid colonies skew to colonies of king's species, while the soldier proportion skew to queen's species. The survival rate of offspring resulting from interspecies hybridization was significantly higher for mRa x fRs than for mRs x fRa. The results of this study demonstrate the asymmetric influence of kings and queens on caste determination and colony growth, which can contribute to our better understanding of parental influence on the colony dynamics of social insects.

Social insects make elaborate use of simple mechanisms to achieve seemingly complex behavior and may thus provide a unique resource to discover the basic cognitive elements required for culture, i.e., group-specific behaviors that spread from \"innovators\" to others in the group via social learning. We first explored whether bumblebees can learn a nonnatural object manipulation task by using string pulling to access a reward that was presented out of reach. Only a small minority \"innovated\" and solved the task spontaneously, but most bees were able to learn to pull a string when trained in a stepwise manner. In addition, naïve bees learnt the task by observing a trained demonstrator from a distance. Learning the behavior relied on a combination of simple associative mechanisms and trial-and-error learning and did not require \"insight\": naïve bees failed a \"coiled-string experiment,\" in which they did not receive instant visual feedback of the target moving closer when tugging on the string. In cultural diffusion experiments, the skill spread rapidly from a single knowledgeable individual to the majority of a colony's foragers. We observed that there were several sequential sets (\"generations\") of learners, so that previously naïve observers could first acquire the technique by interacting with skilled individuals and, subsequently, themselves become demonstrators for the next \"generation\" of learners, so that the longevity of the skill in the population could outlast the lives of informed foragers. This suggests that, so long as animals have a basic toolkit of associative and motor learning processes, the key ingredients for the cultural spread of unusual skills are already in place and do not require sophisticated cognition.

The origin of complex worker-caste systems in ants perplexed Darwin 1 and has remained an enduring problem for evolutionary and developmental biology 2 – 6 . Ants originated approximately 150 million years ago, and produce colonies with winged queen and male castes as well as a wingless worker caste 7 . In the hyperdiverse genus Pheidole , the wingless worker caste has evolved into two morphologically distinct subcastes—small-headed minor workers and large-headed soldiers 8 . The wings of queens and males develop from populations of cells in larvae that are called wing imaginal discs 7 . Although minor workers and soldiers are wingless, vestiges or rudiments of wing imaginal discs appear transiently during soldier development 7 , 9 – 11 . Such rudimentary traits are phylogenetically widespread and are primarily used as evidence of common descent, yet their functional importance remains equivocal 1 , 12 – 14 . Here we show that the growth of rudimentary wing discs is necessary for regulating allometry—disproportionate scaling—between head and body size to generate large-headed soldiers in the genus Pheidole . We also show that Pheidole colonies have evolved the capacity to socially regulate the growth of rudimentary wing discs to control worker subcaste determination, which allows these colonies to maintain the ratio of minor workers to soldiers. Finally, we provide comparative and experimental evidence that suggests that rudimentary wing discs have facilitated the parallel evolution of complex worker-caste systems across the ants. More generally, rudimentary organs may unexpectedly acquire novel regulatory functions during development to facilitate adaptive evolution. In the ant genus Pheidole the growth of rudimentary wing discs—which influence developmental allometry to produce castes with distinct morphologies—is socially regulated to determine the worker-to-soldier ratio in Pheidole colonies.

The Lower Rio Grande Valley is an ecologically unique region acclaimed for its biodiversity and great conservation value. The Valley harbors a multitude of wild bee species rarely seen north of Mexico—many found almost exclusively in Texas or along the Texas-Mexico border. Habitat loss, increasing drought, and border politics threaten habitats along the Rio Grande, and many of these species are at risk of disappearing before they’ve even been documented: fascinating species such as the rare Texas mesoxaea, the emerald-green Aztec sweat bee, the formidable Totonac cuckoo leafcutter, or the elusive Ptiloglossa feather-tongued bee. Photographer and author Paula Sharp has painstakingly documented more than 100 bee species from within 45 distinct genera to produce Native Bees of the Texas Lower Rio Grande Valley , offering readers a rare glimpse of the region’s bee life. Many of the bees shown here have never appeared in published photographs. Each species is presented in colorful detail, accompanied by floral associations and short histories summarizing entomological research conducted to date. Sharp combines formidable research skills with dazzling photographic artistry to render a guide that is comprehensive, informative, and beautiful. This richly illustrated and authoritative guide to native bee species in the Texas Rio Grande Valley will be of great interest to avocational and professional naturalists, entomologists, conservationists, apiculturists, and nature enthusiasts, especially in the region.

Orphaned colonies of Cryptotermes domesticus readily produce replacement reproductives and continue propagation. In this study, we aimed to investigate the production and fecundity of neotenic reproductives in 5-year-old colonies of C. domesticus after orphaning. All 15 experimental colonies were successfully re-established by the neotenic reproductive pair. Three types of neotenic reproductives with various wing-bud lengths were observed: type I with micro wing buds, type II with short wing buds, and type III with long wing buds. Four patterns of pairs made up of these neotenics, namely, type I + type II, type I + type III, type II + type II, and type II + type III, exhibited reproductive capacities similar to those of the primary reproductive pair. We speculated that these neotenic reproductives were derived from various nymphal instars. The 5-year-old colonies had three instars of nymphs, with the majority being in the second instar, followed by the first. Thus, the combination of neotenic reproductives with short wing buds and micro wing buds was the dominant differentiation pathway of the orphaned colonies. After the removal of the original primary reproductive pair, the nymphs matured into neotenic reproductives and took over reproduction in the colony in 107.40 ± 15.18 days. This study highlights the importance of quarantine and routine inspection of wood, as well as the significance of early prevention and control of C. domesticus infestation in wood. Moreover, this study confirms the high differentiation and reproductive capacities of C. domesticus.