Insect life strategies comprise all levels of sociality from solitary to eusocial, in which
individuals form persistent groups and divide labor. With increasing social complexity, the …

The body surface of nearly all insects, including ants, is covered with a lipid layer that largely
consists of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHC). They fulfil several functions, the two best-studied …

Although most conservationists claim to protect “species”, the conservation unit actually and
practically managed is the individual population. As resources are not unlimited, we need to …

The range of hosts exploited by a parasite is determined by several factors, including host
availability, infectivity and exploitability. Each of these can be the target of natural selection …

Myrmica ants have been model species for studies in a variety of disciplines, including
insect physiology, chemical communication, ant social dynamics, ant population, community …

Confirmation bias is a tendency of people to interpret information in a way that confirms their
expectations. A long recognized phenomenon in human psychology, confirmation bias can …

Behaviour is a response of organisms to internal and external stimuli and comprises various
activities such as searching for food. Aggression is important in such activities, for example …

Even though insects and plants are distantly related organisms, they developed an
integument which is functionally and structurally similar. Besides functioning as a physical …

Studies investigating host-parasite systems rarely deal with multispecies interactions, and
mostly explore impacts on hosts as individuals. Much less is known about the effects at …

Nestmate recognition, ie, the ability to discriminate nestmates from foreign individuals, is a
crucial feature of insect societies, and it has been traditionally considered to be …