Born in an alien nest: how do social parasite male offspring escape from host aggression?

ABSTRACT: Social parasites exploit the colony resources of social insects. Some of them exploit the host colony as a food resource or as a shelter whereas other species also exploit the brood care behavior of their social host. Some of these species have even lost the worker caste and rely completely on the host's worker force to rear their offspring. To avoid host defenses and bypass their recognition code, these social parasites have developed several sophisticated chemical infiltration strategies. These infiltration strategies have been highly studied in several hymenopterans. Once a social parasite has successfully entered a host nest and integrated its social system, its emerging offspring still face the same challenge of avoiding host recognition. However, the strategy used by the offspring to

SUBMITTER: Lhomme P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3447871 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature