Abstract
Colony founding is a critically important phase in the lifecycle of social insects. Independent founding is far more common than dependent founding in social insects with honeybees, stingless bees, army ants, and some swarm-founding wasps being exceptions. Despite apparent costs, i.e., reduced per capita reproductive output, heightened competition over resources, and high transmission rate of parasites and pathogens, cofoundress associations or pleometrosis are prevalent, much more prevalent than we know. Potential advantages of pleometrosis include (1) larger and/or faster production of the first worker cohort, (2) increased survival of founding queens, (3) earlier maturation to the reproductive stage, (4) better protection from parasites and predators, (5) reduced costs in nest construction and maintenance, and (6) assured fitness return. Even a mixed-species pleometrosis is found among Azteca ants in Costa Rica. Colony founding in social insects is an excellent arena to study the evolution of cooperation.
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