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Science 8 April 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5719, p. 161
DOI: 10.1126/science.308.5719.161n
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This Week in Science
Accounting for the reproductive division of labor, or caste differentiation, is central to understanding social evolution in insects. Hunt and Amdam (p. 264) use individual-based modeling to show how the differentiation of polistine wasps (paper wasps) into reproductive "queens" and functionally sterile "workers" could arise through social co-option of regulatory circuits that once controlled a conditional diapause pathway. This developmental pathway would have been a key control element in the life cycle of the solitary ancestor of paper wasps, giving rise to a bivoltine (two-generational) life history pattern. Elucidating how social castes can emerge from specific regulatory elements present in solitary insects, provides a mechanistic explanation for the origins of eusociality.
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
