Editor's Summary
2 November 2006
What about the workers?
In many ant, bee and wasp species the workers have normal ovaries but do not reproduce. Is this voluntary altruism? Or perhaps a little persuasion is involved. A study of nine Vespidae wasps and the honeybee provides clear evidence that social coercion is the key. The workers forego reproduction in response to the threat that their eggs will be killed, or 'policed', by nestmates.
News and Views: Evolutionary biology: To work or not to work
Coercion, not kinship, often determines who acts altruistically in an insect colony. But underlying affinities for kin emerge when coercion is removed: kin selection is what turns suppressed individuals into altruists.
David C. Queller
doi:10.1038/444042a
Brief Communications: Enforced altruism in insect societies
Tom Wenseleers and Francis L. W. Ratnieks
doi:10.1038/444050a
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