Abstract:
Social insects, such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites, have been important models for understanding complex systems. In this talk, I will provide an overview of my laboratory’s research program related to the mechanisms and evolution of highly social behavior in insects (called “eusociality”), focusing on bees and wasps. I will first describe a conceptual framework for the major cooperative transitions in evolution, along with a scenario for the evolution of eusociality in insects. I will provide some vignettes from my laboratory’s recent research studies that are contributing to our growing understanding of this major transition in evolution. We integrate studies of behavior, physiology, and genomics, and new insights are beginning to unravel how eusociality evolved, fueled by recent advances in genomics and applying these to multiple species, including honey bees, bumble bees, and paper wasps.