Chemical messengers are the primary mode of intracolony communication in the majority of
social insect species. Chemically transmitted information plays a major role in nestmate …

Insect societies play a crucial role in the functioning of most ecosystems and have fascinated
both scientists and the lay public for centuries. Despite the long history of study, we are still …

Abstract The Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, is an invasive, globally-distributed predator of
European honey bees and other insects. To better under its reproductive biology and to find …

In colonial organisms, alarm pheromones can provide a key fitness advantage by enhancing
colony defence and warning of danger. Learning which species use alarm pheromone and …

In the paper wasp Polistes dominula, cuticular hydrocarbons play a critical role to acquire
information regarding conspecific individuals. However, the relationship between cuticular …

Nestmate recognition, ie, the ability to discriminate nestmates from foreign individuals, is a
crucial feature of insect societies, and it has been traditionally considered to be …

Detection of diseased individuals in a social group is a critical step of social immunity, to
prevent the spread of parasites or pathogens. Parasite-induced alterations of the host …

In the course of evolution, eusociality has appeared several times independently in
Hymenoptera, within different families such as Apidae (bees), Formicidae (ants), and …

Differences in male and female phenotypes are often the results of sexual selection. Over
the years, a vast number of studies investigated how and why the 2 sexes differ in their …

Little is known about the roles of sex pheromones in mate‐finding behavior of social wasps
(V espidae). Working with the aerial yellowjacket, D olichovespula arenaria (F abricius) …