Queen Number and Sociality in Insects (Oxford Science Publications)

Social insects--especially bees, wasps, ants, and termites--are diverse, abundant, and ecologically vital. The key to their enormous success lies in the highly efficient division of labor within their large, complex societies, an efficiency that is largely dependent upon the number of queens cohabiting within a nest. Queen number varies widely and profoundly affects critical components of social organization such as genetic relatedness, reproductive strategies, sex ratio, and the nature of conflicts among nestmates. This up-to-date volume features contributions by leading researchers addressing critical questions related to the evolution of sterile castes, the nature of co-operation and conflict in groups, and why deadly fights between queens occur in some species. Variation in queen number is an ideal system for investigating the evolutionary forces operating among social insects, making this book will be of interest to a wide range of researchers and students in entomology, animal behavior, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary biology.