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 …

Close relatedness has long been considered crucial to the evolution of eusociality.
However, it has recently been suggested that close relatedness may be a consequence …

Species inventories are essential for documenting global diversity and generating
necessary material for taxonomic study and conservation planning. However, for inventories …

Limited dispersal may favor the evolution of helping behaviors between relatives as it
increases their relatedness, and it may inhibit such evolution as it increases local …

Since their origin about 120 million years ago (Mya), ants have evolved to become the most
species-rich and ecologically diverse group of social insects (Grimaldi and Engel 2005; …

In this study we investigated the population genetic structure of the queenless ant
Diacamma cyaneiventre. This species, lacking winged queens, is likely to have a restricted …

Ant larvae may increase their fitness by trying to increase their food intake, since adult
morphology and quality depend on nutritional conditions during juvenile development. As …

Background Multiple queen mating in eusocial Hymenoptera was considered a potentially
serious problem for the evolution and maintenance of worker helping behavior by kin …

Adaptive management at its most basic level involves the continual incorporation of new
knowledge into a decision-making process to refine and improve project actions and …

Our understanding of the natural history of Neotropical ants is still limited, both due to a lack
of detailed descriptive efforts and the widespread use of morphospecies in community …