"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."
A social organization in which individuals within a colony or group divide labor and cooperate in rearing offspring, with a reproductive division of labor (for example, sterile worker ants and bees).
Definition of Eusociality: This refers to the behavior exhibited by certain animal species where individuals cooperate in the care of offspring and share resources.
Evolutionary Origins of Eusociality: This topic delves into how eusociality has evolved over time and its possible evolutionary advantages.
Kin Selection: This refers to the evolutionary theory that explains cooperation in eusocial animals as being driven by the genetic relatedness between individuals.
Eusocial Insects: This topic focuses on the most commonly studied eusocial groups, including ants, bees, and wasps. It covers their behavior, communication, and hierarchy.
Eusocial Vertebrates: This refers to the less common eusocial groups, such as naked mole rats and some species of birds, and their behavior patterns.
Reproductive Division of Labor: Eusociality is characterized by individuals specializing in specific tasks; for instance, some animals only focus on reproduction, while others perform tasks such as foraging and nest building.
Nesting Behavior: This topic focuses on the various methods of constructing and maintaining nests used by eusocial species.
Communication or Social Interaction: The ability to communicate within a colony or family is essential to eusociality, and this topic covers the various methods of interactions between individuals.
Altruism in Eusociality: A key feature of eusociality is altruistic behavior by individual members of the colony or family, which brings higher reproductive success to the group as a whole.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Eusociality: This covers the various advantages and disadvantages of eusocial behavior, including the costs of the reproductive division of labor and the benefits of group living.
Genetics and Eusociality: This topic covers the genetic factors that drive eusocial behavior, such as gene expression and epigenetics.
Socialization and Learning: The acquisition of knowledge, skills and behaviors that are necessary for functioning in a eusocial society.
Cultural Transmission: This topic details how social norms, values, and practices are transmitted across generations within eusocial groups.
Social Structure & Hierarchy: This discussion covers the power dynamics within a eusocial society, and the roles of dominant and subordinate individuals.
Life Cycles and Longevity: Eusociality is characterized by prolonged life stages and extended parental care, which can have significant implications for the individual's and group's survival strategies.
Environmental factors: Finally, this topic highlights how environmental factors can impact the evolution of eusociality and how eusocial animals adapt to their environment over time.
Obligate eusociality: This type of eusociality is seen in species where all individuals are destined to become either workers or reproductives. Queens are the reproducing individuals and workers are sterile.
Facultative eusociality: In facultative eusociality, individuals have the potential to become eusocial, but this is not always the case. Depending on environmental conditions, some individuals may develop into reproductive individuals while others may remain sterile workers.
Incipient eusociality: This is the early stages of eusociality, where individuals of a species start to display certain social behaviors, but it is not yet clear whether they will evolve into a fully eusocial species.
Temporary eusociality: Some species exhibit eusocial behavior only during certain stages of their life cycle, such as during mating or reproduction.
Semisociality: In semisocial species, there is a mix of eusocial and solitary behavior. Social behavior is limited to certain stages of the life cycle, such as during mating or raising offspring.
Pseudo-eusociality: This is where social behavior looks similar to eusociality but is not due to genetic relatedness. For example, some insects evolved to form communal societies where individuals cooperate in food gathering and rearing of offspring, but they are not related by genetics.
Quasisociality: In quasisocial species, individuals come together to raise offspring, but there is little to no cooperation in other aspects of their behavior.
Solitary eusociality: In some species, individuals live a mostly solitary lifestyle, but they form eusocial colonies during specific periods of their life cycle, such as during reproduction.
Parasociality: This occurs when unrelated individuals live in close proximity to one another and may even cooperate in certain tasks, but they don't exhibit true eusocial behavior.
Helper eusociality: This is when some individuals help raise the offspring of the dominant reproductive individuals, but they are not themselves fertile.
"Eusociality exists in certain insects, crustaceans, and mammals. It is mostly observed and studied 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 a living situation favorable for the brood."
"In addition to Hymenoptera and Blattodea, there are two known eusocial vertebrates among rodents: the naked mole-rat and the Damaraland mole-rat."
"Some shrimp, such as Synalpheus regalis, are also eusocial."
"The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society which are sometimes referred to as 'castes'."
"Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms."
"Eusociality (from Greek εὖ eu 'good' and social)"
"Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform at least one behavior characteristic of individuals in another caste."
"cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals)"
"E. O. Wilson and others have claimed that humans have evolved a weak form of eusociality."
"but these arguments have been disputed."
"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."
"soldiers and workers work together to create a living situation favorable for the brood."
"individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform at least one behavior characteristic of individuals in another caste."
"take the roles of the sole reproducers"
"cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals)"
"the naked mole-rat and the Damaraland mole-rat."
"It is mostly observed and studied in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) and in Blattodea (termites)."