The establishment of symbioses between eukaryotic hosts and bacterial symbionts in nature is a dynamic process. The formation of such relationships depends on the life history of both partners. Bacterial symbionts of amoebae may have unique evolutionary trajectories to the symbiont lifestyle, because bacteria are typically ingested as prey. To persist after ingestion, bacteria must first survive phagocytosis. In the social amo...

Studies of genetic population structures of clonally reproducing macro‐organisms have revealed large areas where only one clone is found. These areas, referred to as clonal patches, have not been shown to occur in free‐living microbes until now. In free‐living microbes, high genetic diversity at local scales is usually maintained by high rates of dispersal. We report, however, a highly dense, 12‐m clonal patch of the social am...

The genetic structure of social insect colonies is predicted to affect the balance between cooperation and conflict. Stingless bees are of special interest in this respect because they are singly mated relatives of the multiply mated honeybees. Multiple mating is predicted to lead to workers policing each others’ male production with the result that virtually all males are produced by the queen, and this prediction is borne ou...

Kin selection theory has received some of its strongest support from analyses of within‐colony conflicts between workers and queens in social insects. One of these conflicts involves the timing of queen production. In neotropical wasps, new queens are only produced by colonies with just one queen while males are produced by colonies with more queens, a pattern favoured by worker interests. We now show that new colonies, or swa...