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Choosing a New Queen: Consensus without Conflict in a Social Wasp Colony

Gadagkar, R (2017) Choosing a New Queen: Consensus without Conflict in a Social Wasp Colony. [Book Chapter]

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PDF (Gadagkar, R. 2017. Choosing a New Queen: Consensus without Conflict in a Social Wasp Colony. In: Landscapes of Collectivity in the Life Sciences , Gissis, S. B. et al (Eds.) The MIT Press , Cambridge, Massachusetts pp.67-75)
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Abstract

The Insect Societies : Many species of insects, such as ants , bees, and wasps, organize themselves into societies that parallel if not better human societies in many respects. These insects organize themselves into social units called colonies, characterized by efficient communication and coordination and division of labor. A particularly remarkable property of insect societies is their reproductive division of labor-only one or a small number of individuals reproduce (the queens), while the rest remain sterile and work for the welfare of the colony (workers) (Wilson 1971 ). However, the queen may die at some stage and so will have to be replaced. Such queen succession in the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata is the focus of this chapter. Space prevents me from describing the many .remarkable details of collective behavior in many other social insect species discovered by a large number of social insect researchers (see, e.g. , Gadau and Fewell 2009).

Item Type: Book Chapter
Publisher: The MIT Press
Keywords: Social wasps, Ropalidia marginata, Queen succession, Primitively eusocial, Collective behaviour
Department/Centre: Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited: 15 Mar 2021 11:28
Last Modified: 15 Mar 2021 11:28
URI: http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/67659

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