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Updated: Feb 1, 2026

Assessment of Social Transmission of Food Preferences Behaviors
Published on: January 25, 2018
Transmission of mutualistic bacteria in social and gregarious insects
Thomas Ogao Onchuru1, Adam Javier Martinez1, Chantal Selina Ingham1
1Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 13, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
Abstract:
Symbiotic microbes can confer a range of benefits to social, sub-social, and gregarious insects that include contributions to nutrition, digestion, and defense. Transmission of beneficial symbionts to the next generation in these insects sometimes occurs transovarially as in many solitary insects, but primarily through social contact such as coprophagy in gregarious taxa, and trophallaxis in eusocial insects. While these behaviors benefit reliable transmission of multi-microbial assemblages, they may also come at the cost of inviting the spread of parasites and pathogens. Nonetheless, the overall benefit of social symbiont transmission may be one of several important factors that reinforce the evolution of social behaviors and insect eusociality.
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