We examined the fate of experimentally immune-challenged worker honeybees that had been reintroduced to the hive. We find that they often leave the hive, both by 'altruistically' leaving under their own power, and by being dragged out by other workers. Using a chemical transfer experiment, we show that the latter response is mediated by chemicals present on the body surface of immune challenged workers.
Trade‐offs between current and future resource allocation can select for elevated reproductive effort in individuals facing mortality. Males are predicted to benefit from increasing investment in costly sexually selected signals after experiencing an …
The selective forces that shape and maintain eusocial societies are an enduring puzzle in evolutionary biology. Ordinarily sterile workers can usually reproduce given the right conditions, so the factors regulating reproductive division of labour may …
Organisms partition resources into life-history traits in order to maximise fitness over their expected lifespan. For the males of many species fitness is determined by qualitative and quantitative aspects of costly sexual signals: The notion that …