Highest level of animal sociality a species can attain
Co-operative brood rearing, seen here in honeybees, is a condition of eusociality.
Eusociality (Greek εὖ eu "good" and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society which are sometimes referred to as 'castes'. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms.
Eusociality has evolved among the insects, crustaceans, and mammals. It is most widespread in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) and in Blattodea (termites). A colony has caste differences: queens and reproductive males take the roles of the sole reproducers, while soldiers and workers work together to create and maintain a living situation favorable for the brood. Queens produce multiple queen pheromones to create and maintain the eusocial state in their colonies; they may also eat eggs laid by other females or exert dominance by fighting. There are two eusocial rodents: the naked mole-rat and the Damaraland mole-rat. Some shrimps, such as Synalpheus regalis, are eusocial. E. O. Wilson and others have made the claim that humans have evolved a weak form of eusociality. It has been suggested that the colonial and epiphytic staghorn fern, too, may make use of a primitively eusocial division of labor.
eusociality. M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita, and E. O. Wilson proposed in 2010 that since eusociality produces an extremely altruistic society, eusocial groups...
model is sufficient to explain the evolution of eusociality, and most likely the pathway to eusociality involved a combination of pre-conditions, ecological...
acknowledged degree of sociality. Eusociality has evolved in several orders of insects. Common examples of eusociality are from Hymenoptera (ants, bees...
nine) evolutions of eusociality within Hymenoptera. Haplodiploidy is neither necessary nor sufficient for eusociality. Some eusocial species such as termites...
heterospecific intruders. This evidence points towards the first known case of eusociality in a marine animal. The species name "regalis" comes from the Latin regalis...
within the colony. Primitively eusocial species such as these provide insight into the early evolution of eusociality. Halictus sexcinctus, which exhibits...
Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants) and Isoptera (termites) that exhibit eusociality. Eusocial insects are animals that develop large, multigenerational cooperative...
definition of eusociality". Behavioral Ecology. 6 (1): 109–115. doi:10.1093/beheco/6.1.109. Kent, D. S. & Simpson, J. A. (1992). "Eusociality in the beetle...
radiations between 3 and 9 mya from which the ancestors of these eusocial species appeared. Eusociality is thought to have arisen due to competition for space,...
work on the classification of insect societies and for coining the term eusociality. Batra graduated from Saranac Lake (New York) High School in 1956 and...
Otiorhynchus. One species of weevil, Austroplatypus incompertus, exhibits eusociality, one of the few insects outside the Hymenoptera and the Isoptera to do...
with other inferred eusociality origins. Thus, the Halictinae are believed to model the primitive eusociality of advanced eusocial hymenopterans. Because...
organisms. Other problematic cases include colonial organisms; a colony of eusocial insects is organised adaptively, and has germ-soma specialisation, with...
family Vespidae and are eusocial, living together in a nest with an egg-laying queen and non-reproducing workers. Eusociality is favoured by the unusual...
selection have crumbled" and that he now relies instead on the theory of eusociality and "gene-culture co-evolution" for the underlying mechanics of sociobiology...
genus Bombus, live in eusocial colonies in which the individuals in the group act as a single multiorganismal superorganism. Eusociality may have evolved in...
portal The Meerkats, a 2008 documentary feature film Compare the Meerkat Eusociality "PBDB: Suricata". Jordan, N.R. & Do Linh San, E. (2015). "Suricata suricatta"...
advantageous and has been hypothesized to contribute to the multiple origins of eusociality within this order. In many colonies of bees, ants, and wasps, worker...
stage); common bottlenose dolphins; orcas; and false killer whales. Eusociality is the highest level of social organization. These societies have an...
multiple and gradual adultoid molts before becoming an adult, the advent of eusociality has significantly altered the developmental patterns of this group of...
of the eusocial Hymenopterans. It is theorized that the possession of a venomous sting was important in the repeated evolution of eusociality within Hymenoptera...
analysis supports the single origin of eusociality hypothesis within the corbiculate bees, where eusociality evolved in the common ancestor of Bombini...
PMC 34068. PMID 11087846. Wilson, E.O. & Hölldobler, B. (September 2005). "Eusociality: Origin and consequences". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...
Georg; Yamamoto, Shûhei (29 July 2022). "Evidence for the evolution of eusociality in stem ants and a systematic revision of † Gerontoformica (Hymenoptera:...
"Ancestral Monogamy Shows Kin Selection Is Key to the Evolution of Eusociality". Science. 320 (5880): 1213–1216. Bibcode:2008Sci...320.1213H. doi:10...
diverse, cosmopolitan family of wasps, including nearly all the known eusocial wasps (such as Polistes fuscatus, Vespa orientalis, and Vespula germanica)...
organisms of the same species have also evolved. An extreme case is the eusociality found in social insects, such as bees, termites and ants, where sterile...
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