The dominant and ancestral mode of sex determination in the Hymenoptera is
arrhenotokous parthenogenesis, in which diploid females develop from fertilized eggs and …

Division of labour—individuals specializing in different activities—features prominently in the
spectacular success of the social insects. Until recently, genetic and genomic analyses of …

Comprising a substantial part of living biomass on earth, ants are integral to the functioning
of terrestrial ecosystems. More than 12,000 species have been described to date, and it is …

Native to eastern Asia, the Formosan subterranean termite Coptotermes formosanus
(Shiraki) is recognized as one of the 100 worst invasive pests in the world, with established …

Recent evidence for genetic effects on royal and worker caste differentiation from diverse
social insect taxa has put an end to the view that these phenotypes stem solely from a …

Systematics has developed rapidly during the past two decades. A multitude of new
methods and contributions from a diversity of biological fields including molecular genetics …

The haplodiploid sex determining mechanism in Hymenoptera (males are haploid, females
are diploid) has played an important role in the evolution of this insect order. In …

Unicolonial ant populations are the most extensive cooperative units known in nature,
forming networks of interconnected nests extending sometimes hundreds of kilometers …

Sexual reproduction is the dominant reproductive mode in eukaryotes but, in many taxa, it
has never been observed. Molecular methods that detect evidence of sex are largely based …

Female parthenogenesis, or thelytoky, is particularly common in solitary Hymenoptera. Only
more recently has it become clear that many eusocial species also regularly reproduce …