ArticleNature communications2023
Unexpected worker mating and colony-founding in a superorganism.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Regulation of reproductive and behavioral plasticity in social insects.Current opinion in insect science · 2026Review
- The evolution of the immune system of bees is defined by conservation, expansions, and losses.BMC biology · 2026Article
- Age, caste, and social context shape ovarian morphology and transcriptomic profiles in red harvester ants.npj aging · 2025Article
- A Microsurgical Technique for Removing the Spermatheca of Bumblebee Females and Its Application.Insects · 2025Article
- Localized Tissue-Specific Gene Expression and Gene Duplications are Important Sources of Social Morph Differences in a Social Bumblebee.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- The origin and maintenance of division of labour in an Indian paper wasp.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Review
- Molecular Basis of Eusocial Complexity: The Case of Worker Reproductivity in Bees.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- The diversity of social complexity in termites.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
20 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The emergence of caste-differentiated colonies, which have been defined as 'superorganisms', in ants, bees, and wasps represents a major transition in evolution. Lifetime mating commitment by queens, pre-imaginal caste determination and lifetime unmatedness of workers are key features of these animal societies. Workers in superorganismal species like honey bees and many ants have consequently lost, or retain only vestigial spermathecal structures. However, bumble bee workers retain complete spermathecae despite 25-40 million years since their origin of superorganismality, which remains an evolutionary mystery. Here, we show (i) that bumble bee workers retain queen-like reproductive traits, being able to mate and produce colonies, underlain by queen-like gene expression, (ii) the social conditions required for worker mating, and (iii) that these abilities may be selected for by early queen-loss in these annual species. These results challenge the idea of lifetime worker unmatedness in superorganisms, and provide an exciting new tool for the conservation of endangered bumble bee species.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.