Dulosis is a type of social parasitism in which a parasitic ant has become dependent on captured workers (hosts) of a closely related species. Dulosis can be either facultative or obligate depending on the degree of dependence on host workers. As parasites become more specialized over evolutionary time, their domestic abilities degenerate until they become unable to survive without the host. However

Female response to male sexual signals is context dependent and influenced by a variety of environmental factors. For instance, females often adjust mating preferences in response to predation risk. Social experiences as a juvenile, such as exposure to conspecific sexual signals, have also been shown to influence female mating preferences as adults. Experiments that examine the influence of both environmental

Movements of fireflies visible on the surface of soil were measured under controlled laboratory conditions consisting of high and low ambient illumination. High illumination approximating the intensity of light prior to sunset constituted our light condition. Low illumination was consistent with ambient light levels after civil sunset, which we referred to as our dark condition. Surface movements were

Cannibalism is a widespread behavioral phenomenon that is often thought to be an adaptive plastic response to limited environmental resources. However, cannibalism can potentially come at a fitness cost to an individual if one consumes relatives, due to the potential loss of indirect fitness benefits. One way in which this cost could be avoided is by the selective avoidance of cannibalising kin in

Host attachment is a necessary behavior in the evolution of parasitism. It is hypothesized that populations pass through a stage of facultative parasitism before the evolution of obligate parasitism. Previous research has revealed the impact of extrinsic factors on the expression of parasitic tendencies, but to our knowledge, the role of individual behavioral variation driving parasitic tendencies

Leaf cutter ants are model organisms in studies of central place foraging, but these ants carry smaller than optimal leaf fragments for their body size. Laboratory experiments show that load ratios (leaf fragment mass/ant mass) are higher on extreme downhill trails than on extreme uphill trails, which could explain deviations from optimality in the wild. Here we examine how trail gradient affects load

The interaction of antlions and ants is postulated to be a predator-prey interaction in which the involved parties coevolve. Here, we investigated two issues of potential significance in terms of antlions and ants imposing selective pressures on one another. First, we determined whether trap-building antlions and sand-dwelling ants closely co-occurred in an area inhabited by both. In the field, we

The original version of this article unfortunately contains some mistakes in literature references.

Cockroaches can defend themselves from threats by escape behavior. Although wind-evoked turning in Periplaneta americana is robust, little is known about the turning and translational components of the escape response to looming and localized heat stimuli, especially in other cockroach species. In particular, it has been suggested that the Madagascar hissing cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa) lacks

Modifying ancestral regulatory mechanisms can be a source of evolutionary novelty. Bees in small-colony, dominance-based societies typically show a link between size and aggression: larger bees are more aggressive. This led to the hypothesis that this size-aggression link is a characteristic of ancestral solitary bees that has acquired a novel function in the evolutionary transition from solitary to

This review examines visually guided search behavior during walking in different species and developmental stages of insects having contrasting habitat utilization strategies. The discussion focuses on mantises, short-horned grasshoppers and crickets. Although generally short-horned grasshoppers are travelers, whereas mantises are ambush predators, all of these insects exhibit visually guided behavior

The original version of this article unfortunately contained some mistakes for the greek letter “Ɵ” in the proof manuscript.

Male Aegus chelifer chelifer stag beetles are normally equipped with long mandibles as a weapon to compete with rival males over females, where fighting or aggressive behavior is generally expected during the encounter between two male stag beetles. However, three main patterns were observed between 164 pairings of male stag beetles. Besides the predominant aggressive or fighting behavior (107 pairings)

Animals learn to associate sensory cues with the palatability of food in order to avoid bitterness in food (a common sign of toxicity). Associations are important for active foraging predators to avoid unpalatable prey and to invest energy in searching for palatable prey only. However, it has been suggested that sit-and-wait predators might rely on the opportunity that palatable prey approach them

Diaphorina citri is a major pest of citrus because it transmits Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, a phloem-limited bacterium that putatively causes Huanglongbing (HLB). The disease moves slowly through a tree, and the vector facilitates further within-tree movement via transmission of the pathogen. However, this only happens when D. citri stylets contact the phloem, to inoculate bacteria during phloem

Paper presents the phenomenon of thanatosis or death-feigning in selected aphids species. This specific reaction was predominantly analysed on the example of aphid subfamily Lachninae. Individuals of this group were used in experiments, during which a thanatotic response was induced with various results. The response differed from prolonged thanatosis, lasting for several minutes (Eulachnus rileyi)

In social insects behavioral consequences of shortened life expectancy include, among others, increased risk proneness and social withdrawal. We investigated the impact of experimental shortening of life expectancy of foragers of the ant Formica cinerea achieved by their exposure to carbon dioxide on the expression of rescue behavior, risky pro-social behavior, tested by means of two bioassays during

D. persimilis courtship shows some flexibility and courting males sometimes perform an elaborate postural display in addition to the standard courtship behaviours shared by most Drosophila species. This postural display includes the acrobatic contortion and tremulation of their abdomen, accompanied by the generation of substrate-borne vibrations, and they proffer a nutritional droplet to the female

Predation at the nesting site can significantly affect solitary bees' reproductive success. We tested female red mason bees' (Osmia bicornis L.) acceptance of potential nesting sites, some of which were marked with cues coming from predated conspecifics (crushed bees) or from a predator itself (rodent excreta). In our experiment, females did not avoid nests marked with either of the two predator cues

Studies on spiders in their natural habitats are necessary for determining the full range of plasticity in their web-building behaviour. Plasticity in web design is hypothesised to be important for spiders building in habitats where environmental conditions cause considerable web damage. Here we compared web characteristics of the orb spider Metellina mengei (Araneae, Tetragnathidae) in two different

The behavioral response of the larval parasitoid Spintherus dubius (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae) to volatile compounds derived from its Apion weevil hosts was investigated in two-choice bioassays. Odor source candidates were the larval and adult stages of weevils, clover flowers, and feces from adult weevils. Despite S. dubius being a larval parasitoid, the odor of weevil larvae isolated from the clover

Sexual selection has led to the evolution of extraordinary and elaborate male courtship behaviors across taxa, including mammals and birds, as well as some species of flies. Drosophila persimilis flies perform complex courtship behaviors found in most Drosophila species, which consist of visual, air-borne, gustatory and olfactory cues. In addition, Drosophila persimilis courting males also perform

Bumblebees demonstrate an extensive capacity for learning complex motor skills to maximise exploitation of floral rewards. This ability is well studied in nectar collection but its role in pollen foraging is less well understood. Floral sonication is used by bees to extract pollen from some plant species with anthers which must be vibrated (buzzed) to release pollen. Pollen removal is determined by

Social insect workers usually start adult life from intranidal tasks and then switch to extranidal activities, but this process may be reversed: foragers may switch again to intranidal brood care. The transition forager - reverted nurse is known as the behavioral reversion. Ant foragers are known to avoid illuminated zones less strongly than intranidal workers, but illumination responses of reverted

Many organisms have been reported to choose their mates in order to increase the heterozygosity of their offspring by avoiding mating with relatives or homozygous individuals. Most previous studies using Drosophila melanogaster have used artificial chromosomes or extreme inbreeding treatments, situations unlikely to be matched in nature. Additionally, few studies have examined the interaction between

In a context where hosts are distributed in patches and susceptible to parasitism for a limited time, female parasitoids foraging for hosts might experience intraspecific competition. We investigated the effects of host and parasitoid developmental stage and intraspecific competition among foraging females on host-searching behaviour in the parasitoid wasp Hyposoter horticola. We found that H. horticola

Host exploitation behavior in two hyperparasitoids, Lysibia nana and Gelis agilis, was compared in single cocoon clusters of their primary parasitoid host, Cotesia glomerata. L. nana reproduces sexually, is fully winged, does not host-feed and matures eggs quite rapidly after eclosion, whereas G. agilis possesses opposite traits. Cohorts of individual hyperparasitoid females of differing age and physiological

An undescribed species of phorid fly (genus: Pseudacteon) parasitizes the ant Azteca instabilis F Smith, by first locating these ants through the use of both chemical and visual cues. Experiments were performed in Chiapas, Mexico to examine a) the anatomical source of phorid attractants, b) the specific chemicals produced that attract phorids, and c) the nature of the visual cues used by phorids to

Collective decision making in the social insects often proceeds via feedback cycles based on positive signaling. Negative signals have, however, been found in a few contexts in which costs exist for paying attention to no longer useful information. Here we incorporate new research on the specificity and context of the negative stop signal into an agent based model of honey bee foraging to explore the

The waggle dance of the honey bee is used to recruit nest mates to a resource, though direction indicated for a resource may vary greatly within a single dance. Some authors suggest that this variation exits as an adaptation to distribute recruits across a patch of flowers, and that, due to the variation's inverse relationship with distance, the shape of the recruit distribution will remain constant

Female crickets can potentially gain both direct and indirect benefits from mating multiple times with different males. Most studies have only examined the effects of small numbers of matings, although female crickets are capable of mating many times. The goal of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect benefits of mating large numbers of times for female reproductive success. In a previous

Kin selection theory states that when resources are limited and all else is equal, individuals will direct competition away from kin. However, when competition between relatives is completely local, as is the case in granivorous insects whose larval stages spend their lives within a single seed, this can reduce or even negate the kin-selected benefits. Instead, an increase in competition may have the

We studied the reproductive behaviour of the solitary bee Colletes halophilus based on the variation in cell size, larval food amount and larval sex in relation to the sexual size dimorphism in this bee. Brood cells with female larvae are larger and contain more larval food than cells with males. Occasionally males are reared in female-sized cells. We conclude that a female C. halophilus in principal

A hallmark of eusociality is cooperative brood care. In most social insect systems brood rearing labor is divided between individuals working in the nest tending the queen and larvae, and foragers collecting food outside the nest. To place brood rearing division of labor within an evolutionary context, it is necessary to understand relationships between individuals in the nest engaged in brood care

We examined temporal polyethism in Pogonomyrmex rugosus, predicting a pattern of decreasing age from foragers to nest maintenance workers to individuals that were recruited to harvest a temporary food source. Nest maintenance workers were younger than foragers, as indicated by their heavier mass and lower mandibular wear. In contrast, recruited foragers were similar in mass to foragers but they displayed

Surplus or 'wasteful' killing of uneaten prey has been documented in the fourth larval instar of various species of the mosquito genus Toxorhynchites that occur in treeholes and other phytotelmata. Here we document surplus killing by the predatory midge Corethrella appendiculata, which in Florida cohabits treeholes and artificial containers with larvae of Toxorhynchites rutilus. Provided with a surfeit

We examined the recruitment rate of nestmates during prey capture in six arboreal ant species: Myrmicaria opaciventris, Platythyrea conradti, Crematogaster sp., Crematogaster clariventris, Tetramorium aculeatum, and Oecophylla longinoda. Termites and grasshoppers were used as prey. Prey were grouped by size: for termites, we presented ants with either workers or soldiers and for grasshoppers, we used

Closely related species in nature usually exhibit very similar phylogenetically conserved traits, such as reproduction, behavior and development. Here, we compared fecundity schedules, lifetime reproductive success and offspring sex ratios in three congeneric facultative hyperparasitoid wasps that exhibit several overlapping traits and which co-occur in the same small-scale habitats. Gelis agilis,

Aquatic insects are known to modify their behavior in response to environmental conditions, but manipulative experiments are necessary to distinguish which environmental cues trigger which behaviors. Understanding these responses is particularly important for arid-land aquatic taxa because ongoing climate change is predicted to make the current extreme abiotic environment even more extreme. Here we

Relatively little is known about intraspecific variation in the use of chemical defenses by cosmetid harvestmen. In this study, we investigated sexual and ontogenetic variation in the emission of secretions from the scent glands and the morphology of the ozopores of Erginulus clavotibialis, a Neotropical species from Belize. Most individuals (> 94%) did not secrete when seized by leg IV, however, when

Several worker subcastes may occur in ant colonies, including physiological, morphological, and temporal subcastes. Leaf-cutting ants present intricate division of labor among worker subcastes during brood care, fungus garden maintenance, substrate foraging and processing. For colony survival, the fungus garden must be healthy, and tasks efficiently shared among worker subcastes. Therefore, worker

Dopamine (DA), one of the biogenic amines, has been suggested to regulate the motor activities of various animals. In honey bees, it has been reported to promote locomotor activity in queens, workers, and males, and to regulate the flight activity of workers and males. The role of DA in the flight activity of queens, however, has not yet been investigated. In this study, we tested the roles of DA in

Locusts are able to migrate over long distances across areas with different vegetation structures. This work investigates how the spatial arrangement of vegetation might affect locust collective motion. The behavior of groups of third instar Schistocerca gregaria hoppers that had been fed or starved for 24 h was studied experimentally. Food patches were introduced into a circular arena where locust

The balance between the investment of time and energy by males in searching for new partners and in protecting and/or feeding offspring can influence reproductive strategies. Strong competitors may enhance their mating effort, while weak competitors may compensate their disadvantage in intrasexual competition by investing in the increase of offspring survival. This balance and its implications to male

The spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula (White), is an orchard and forest pest native to China. Since its detection in Pennsylvania, USA in 2014, it has spread to other states as well. We conducted experiments to determine the flight capabilities of unmated vs. mated L. delicatula females to assess the relative threat posed by each type with regard to expanding the infestation area through their

Female insects must assess multiple factors when laying eggs, including both abiotic and biotic conditions of the laying site. Competition may also play a crucial role in the oviposition decisions of females. Competition at oviposition sites may take two forms: current competition between adults for both food and access to sites for oviposition, and future competition between offspring that will hatch

Animals in captivity experience drastically different selective pressures than their wild counterparts. This can cause evolutionary divergence in behavior between captive and wild populations. While most research on evolution under captivity has focused on vertebrates, we expect similar behavioral changes in insects that live and breed in commercial facilities. Using the common house cricket, Acheta