About this product

Behaviour and Social Evolution of Wasps

The author presents data on tropical wasps which suggest that kin-selection has been overemphasised as an evolutionary explanation of sociality. He concentrates on the Vespidae (Paper wasps and hornets), and reports field observations by himself and others in Central America, Asia, and Australia. This book should be of interest to all students of ecology, evolution and behaviour.

Contents

Introduction; Systematics and sociality of wasps; Theories on the evolution of eusociality; Problems with the kin-selection hypothesis; Comparison of dominance relations and proportion of multi-female nests in the Polistinae; Ropalidia fasciata in Okinawa, Japan; a species with flexible social relations; Social relations in wasp colonies in the wet tropics; Polistine wasps in Panama; Role of miltuple comb construction and perennial nature of nests: Polistine wasps in Australia; Multi-queen societies: swarm-founding wasps in the tropics; Social lives of the other social wasps; Origin of pleometrosis: altruism or mutualism?; Manipulation of progeny by mother groups: an hypothesis for the evolution of multi-queen societies; Kin-selection and multi-queen social systems; Conclusion; References; Index.

Specifications

Pm Supplier	OUP /Oxford University Press Distribution
Pm Publisher	Oxford University Press
Pm Isbn 10	0198540469
Pm Isbn 13	9780198540465
Pm Publication Date	1993-02-04
Pm Width	156
Pm Height	10
Pm Author	Ito, Yosiaki
Pm Longness	234

The Communal Aggregation Hypothesis
Key Info: B/w photos, illus, figs, tabs
Author: Ito, Yosiaki
Page Count: 159
Publication Date: 1993-02-04