Social insect are profoundly influenced by primer pheromones (PPhs), which are efficient
means for maintaining social harmony in the colony. PPhs act by affecting the physiology of …

The body surface of nearly all insects, including ants, is covered with a lipid layer that largely
consists of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHC). They fulfil several functions, the two best-studied …

Around 150 million years ago, eusocial termites evolved from within the cockroaches, 50
million years before eusocial Hymenoptera, such as bees and ants, appeared. Here, we …

We compared the published cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profiles of 78 ant species across 5
subfamilies. Almost 1,000 CHCs have been described for these species, composing 187 …

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 …

A hitherto largely unresolved problem in behavioral biology is how workers are prevented
from reproducing in large insect societies with high relatedness. Signals of the queen are …

In social insects, recognition of nestmates from aliens is based on olfactory cues, and many
studies have demonstrated that such cues are contained within the lipid layer covering the …

Chemical messengers are the primary mode of intracolony communication in the majority of
social insect species. Chemically transmitted information plays a major role in nestmate …

Inclusive fitness theory explains how helpers reproduce indirectly via the breeders they help.
The inclusive fitness helpers get depends on their relatedness to the breeder (s), colony …

The waggle dance of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) foragers communicates to nest mates the
location of a profitable food source. We used solid-phase microextraction and gas …