Insect life strategies comprise all levels of sociality from solitary to eusocial, in which
individuals form persistent groups and divide labor. With increasing social complexity, the …

Abstract Stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae: Meliponini) represent a highly diverse group
of social bees confined to the world's tropics and subtropics. They show a striking diversity of …

Social animals must communicate to define group membership and coordinate social
organization. For social insects, communication is predominantly mediated through …

Highlights•Insect cuticular hydrocarbons are used to maintain a reproductive division of
labor.•They are often called 'queen pheromones' or 'fertility signals'.•A new evolutionary …

Evolution has created different castes of females in eusocial haplodiploids. The difference
between them lies in their functions and vulnerability but above all in their reproductive …

Structurally diverse queen pheromones and fertility signals regulate the reproductive
division of labor of social insects, such as ants, termites, some bees, and some wasps. The …

Social insects are known for their reproductive division of labor between queens and
workers, whereby queens lay the majority of the colony's eggs, and workers engage mostly …

Queen pheromones, which signal the presence of a fertile queen and induce workers to
remain sterile, play a key role in regulating reproductive division of labour in insect societies …

In insect societies, both queens and workers produce chemicals that reliably signal caste
membership and reproductive status. The mechanisms that help to maintain the honesty of …

Classical hypotheses in lichenology predict pairs of species in which sexual lineages are
ancestral and long-lived evolutionarily and that these give rise to derived, evolutionarily …