#eusociality — Public Fediverse posts

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• The Mathematics of Altruism: An explanation of "Hamilton’s Rule" (rb>c) and how kin selection explains seemingly selfless behaviors like meerkat babysitting.

• #Eusociality and the Colony-as-Organism: A study of naked mole rats and Macrotermes termites, where individuals function as disposable "skin cells" within a singular, sprawling survival machine.

https://youtu.be/GD_Wu8ds0c0

#animals
#ethology
#podcast
#genes

Fujiwara et al. performed WGS and RNAseq of the termite Zootermopsis nevadensis, finding that gene duplications contributed to eusociality, and that lineage-specific Doublesex-related expression underlies caste diversification pathways.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf284

#evobio #molbio #eusociality

🆕(Re)view: In the new post, "How do ants forage for food? Insights from red ants and Western carpenter ants", Enikő Csata comments on the study by Reynard et al. and its importance in the fields of insect nutrition and behaviour.

@AsimRenyard @CsataEniko #nutrition #eusociality

https://blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/2024/11/25/how-do-ants-forage-for-food-insights-from-red-ants-and-western-carpenter-ants/

@cnrs

"Ontogeny of superorganisms: Social control of queen specialization in ants."
Majidifar et al. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14536

"Our study reveals that (i) the presence of workers drives queen specialization in egg production by inhibiting brood care in a dose-dependent manner, (ii) the mere presence of worker cues does not trigger the queen specialization, (iii) this specialization is reversible upon worker removal in at least two species of ants, even after several years of specialization, and (iv) founding queens may express ancestral behaviour and physiology."

#ants #Hymenoptera #eusociality

But we are showing that haplodiploidy is not irrelevant for the evolution of eusociality as some of the past studies are claiming. Future studies should combine other factors under similar study framework to study importance of those factors for the evolution of eusociality.

Thanks for reading the thread! Do read the paper for more details!
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#evolution #insects #hymenoptera #eusociality

Ants – with their wise #farming practices and efficient navigation techniques – could #inspire solutions for some #human problems

#Eusociality #Entomology #Science #Ants #Insects #AculeataFormicidae #Aculeata #Formicidae #Hymenoptera

https://www.rawstory.com/ants-with-their-wise-farming-practices-and-efficient-navigation-techniques-could-inspire-solutions-for-some-human-problems/

#introduction
I'm the regulatory officer for the World Mosquito Program #WMP and moonlight as a researcher. Miss having a pipette in my hand.

Nerd out mostly over #regulatory-science, #Wolbachia, #mutualism, #biocontrol, #generegulation, #speciation & #eusociality.

Love working with #Drosophila & #yeast (also other #fungi), #bees, & #mosquitoes.

Explore with #R, #genomics, #syntheticbiology & #microbiology.

Geeking out includes fixing Japanese #arcade #candycabs.

#introduction I am a #postdoc at the University of #StAndrews, #UK interested in #evolution, #brain, #eusociality, #social #behavior, #evodevo, #mathbio, #science, #math #modelling, #theory, and more.