Social behavior occurs in some of the smallest animals as well as some the largest, and the
transition from solitary life to sociality is an unsolved evolutionary mystery. In The Evolution …

Empirical and experimental studies reporting the probability that some females remain
unmated in field populations of insects (defined herein as mating failures) are reviewed in …

Complex problems in evolutionary biology can be approached in two ways, top down using
theoretical constructs and bottom up using empirical studies. Theoretical concepts …

Dominance status is associated with individual differences in reproductive capacity in many
animal societies, but the mechanisms that link social dominance to reproductive physiology …

We used a standard sampling protocol to measure elevational patterns of species richness
and abundance of eusocial paper wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in Costa Rica. The …

Establishing a direct link between climate change and fluctuations in animal populations
through long-term monitoring is difficult given the paucity of baseline data. We hypothesized …

Primitively eusocial paper wasps exhibit considerable plasticity in their division of labor.
Dominance interactions among nest mates play a strong role in determining the task …

Division of labor in social groups can be influenced by differential nutrition. Consumption of
more food or higher-quality food often affects individuals' capacities for reproduction. In …

The dominance-nutrition hypothesis predicts that nutritional intake and energetic costs in
adulthood interact to drive behavioral and physiological differences between females in …

Harsh weather and natural enemies are the two main causes of colony abandonment by
social wasps. The selection of nesting sites with characteristics that provide shelter from …