More than a century ago, William Morton Wheeler proposed that social insect colonies can
be regarded as superorganisms when they have morphologically differentiated reproductive …

Most social insect lineages contain socially parasitic cheater species that, rather than
produce their own workers, infiltrate the nests of closely related social species and force the …

Background The shift from solitary to social behavior is one of the major evolutionary
transitions. Primitively eusocial bumblebees are uniquely placed to illuminate the evolution …

Bumble bees are an outstanding model system in which to study the organization and
evolution of complex social behaviour. Bumble bees pass through several distinct phases …

Bumble bees are of major importance, ecologically and economically as pollinators in cool
and temperate biomes and as model organisms for scientific research. Chemical signals …

Cheaters—genotypes that gain a selective advantage by taking the benefits of the social
contributions of others while avoiding the costs of cooperating—are thought to pose a major …

Social behavior has long puzzled evolutionary biologists, since the classical theory of
natural selection maintains that individuals should not sacrifice their own fitness to affect that …

Eusocial insects provide special opportunities to elucidate the evolution of ageing as
queens have apparently evaded costs of reproduction and reversed the fecundity–longevity …

Bumble bee has been known for pollination of various crops which are normally unable to
be pollinated by honey bees. They are mostly widespread on temperate areas, although the …

Several decades of research in humans, other vertebrates, and social insects have offered
fascinating insights into the dynamics of punishment (and its subset, policing), but authors …