Facultatively social species exhibit behavioral plasticity in response to changes in ecological
conditions and social environment, and thus provide a natural experiment to compare …

Inclusive fitness theory attempts to explain the evolution of social behavior at the level of the
individual. The inclusive fitness of an individual is defined as the sum of all the effects this …

Monogamy is associated with sibling-directed altruism in multiple animal taxa, including
insects, birds and mammals. Inclusive-fitness theory readily explains this pattern by …

Highlights•The major transition to superorganismality has occurred several times in the
Hymenoptera.•This paper highlights the importance of studying the early and intermediate …

A trademark of eusocial insect species is reproductive division of labor, in which workers
forego their own reproduction while the queen produces almost all offspring. The presence …

Amidst the growing literature on cancer genomics and intratumor heterogeneity, essential
principles in evolutionary biology recur time and time again. Here we use these principles to …

Over the past decade, the cause of sociality has been much debated. Inclusive fitness [br in
Hamilton's rule (br− c> 0)] has been criticized but is still useful in the organization of a …

In 2010, Nowak et al.([1]: hereafter cited as NTW) fired a broad salvo at the concept of
inclusive fitness, criticizing the underlying mathematics and proclaiming that the conceptual …

Wasps are a true model in studies on the origin and evolution of cooperative behavior and
the mechanisms that help to stabilize sociality and resolve internal conflicts. Indeed, the …

Ropalidia marginata is a social wasp in which colonies consist of a single fertile queen and
several sterile workers. If the queen is removed, one of the workers, potential queen (PQ) …