Eusocial insects could have started with monogamous pairs

Darkfrog submitted, created time 5 months 3 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

After reading all those depressing articles about how even monogamous species like swans and wolves cheat on their partners, this one was a bit refreshing. The authors posit that monogamy might be the foundation of cooperative species, at least in the beginning. These findings support the idea that cooperative insects group together because of the chance to let a sister pass on her genes and less because of straight survival.

Keywords: eusocial insects eusociality insects bees hives monogamy fidelity kinship altruism