Thanks to @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social and @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social for funding! FYI @masscheleinlab.bsky.social

Or 👇https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397900195_Conflict_over_caste_fate_in_insect_societies Thanks to coauthors @HelenaMFerreir2 @dipietroviviana @cintiaoi.bsky.social @deniseaalves23 Judith Korb and Francis L.W. Ratnieks! This paper took 20 years to finish, but glad it finally materialised!

From "royal subfamilies" to nutritional coercion, our review synthesizes decades of theory and data to show how social insect colonies resolve (or fail to resolve) the conflict of the ages.
Check it out here 👇https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70107

We also review:
🐜 "Miniature queens" in ants & bees that sneak past worker policing.
🪵 Succession wars in lower termites when the royal pair dies.
🧬 The "parliament of the genes" resolving intragenomic conflicts over caste determination.

In Melipona, up to ~20% of females selfishly develop as queens—far more than needed!

The colony’s solution? Mass execution: workers slaughter the excess queens upon emergence. It is a true tragedy of the commons indeed: individual selfishness resulting in a cost to all! 💀🐝

The answer depends on who is in control.
In honeybees, workers control who gets more and better food (royal jelly). Hence, they decide who becomes queen. But in Melipona stingless bees, larvae feed themselves in identical, sealed cells. The result? A battle over who gets to become the new queen!

Becoming a worker is altruistic, but becoming a queen or king offers direct fitness benefits. 👑

Theory predicts that individual larvae should often selfishly bias their development to become reproductives, even if it hurts the colony. A classic example of a tragedy of the commons. But do they?

Thanks to first author Viviana Di Pietro for the fantastic work & to @ricaliari.bsky.social for overseeing the experimental work in Spain & @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social
for funding!

📜 Check out our new paper in @evolletters.bsky.social : academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

We show theoretically that this compounding effect is a key facilitator to evolve complex social life, thereby explaining a major evolutionary transition!

* correct link with population genetic model appendix: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lq8qb...

* sorry and I meant "convex relationship" :-)

Thanks to first author Viviana Di Pietro for the fantastic work & to @ricaliari.bsky.social for overseeing the experimental work in Spain & @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social for funding! And to @andygardner.bsky.social, @lufromha.bsky.social, @kokkonut.bsky.social & @shikharabhat.bsky.social for comments!

Supplemental material with model details here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kpumz... and Mathematica notebook with the eusociality model here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/h7ery...

Link to paper here www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Overall, our work clarifies how demographic benefits of early cooperation can cause eusociality to evolve more easily, thereby providing a new perspective on a major evolutionary transition and resolving a long-standing paradox.

Theoretical results show that the observed benefits of helping readily allow for the evolution of eusociality, although most readily so with alleles of large effect (penetrance parameter P=1, bottom row) & under single mating (me=1), when sib-sib relatedness is high.