Enabling Mechanisms in the Origin of Sociality in the Hymenoptera—the Sting's the Thing

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Abstract
Group living carries a special cost in added parasite and predator pressure because of clumping of individuals. In insects, such pressure comes primarily from larger, vertebrate predators. At the earliest social stages, social defense measures have not yet evolved, so that predators must be resisted with devices existing in solitary individuals. In the absence of these, predator pressure is an obstacle to the evolution of sociality. The aculeate Hymenoptera have such a device in the sting, unique in its power against very large enemies. The view is developed here that this has allowed the Aculeata to surmount the large-predator obstacle and facilitated the origin of sociality. A corollary to this view is that restriction of the sting to females is sufficient to account for the worker caste being female in all species.

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