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Updated: May 5, 2026

Maintaining Biological Cultures and Measuring Gene Expression in Aphis nerii: A Non-model System for Plant-insect Interactions

Maintaining Biological Cultures and Measuring Gene Expression in Aphis nerii: A Non-model System for Plant-insect Interactions

Published on: August 31, 2018

The insectan apes.

Bernard Crespi¹

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, V5A 1S6, crespi@sfu.ca.

Human Nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)

|December 6, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Humans exhibit convergent evolution with social insects, sharing traits like social structure, division of labor, and cooperative behaviors. However, humans lack a reproductive division of labor, possibly due to high energetic costs of large brains.

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary Biology
Comparative Psychology
Sociobiology

Background:

Humans and social insects display complex social structures and behaviors.
Understanding convergent evolution provides insights into adaptive strategies across diverse taxa.

Purpose of the Study:

To present evidence for convergent evolution between humans and social insects.
To identify shared social, ecological, and reproductive phenotypes.

Main Methods:

Comparative analysis of human and social insect phenotypes.
Examination of life-history trade-offs, specializations, and ecological strategies.

Main Results:

Humans and social insects share numerous convergent traits, including group structure, division of labor, reproductive specialization in females, extramaternal care, food sharing, generalized diets, ecological dominance, and cooperative decision-making.
These adaptations arise from reorganized life-history trade-offs driven by behavioral and physiological specializations.
A key difference lies in the absence of reproductive division of labor in humans, unlike in eusocial insects.

Conclusions:

Humans and social insects have independently evolved similar complex social and ecological strategies.
The high energetic cost of producing offspring with large brains may explain the divergence in reproductive division of labor.
Convergent evolution highlights common adaptive pathways in response to similar ecological and social pressures.