There was this argumentative debate regarding the reason behind the insects’ evolvement into putting the colony’s interest over just the individual. This so-called argument had been mystified researchers for quite some time. Furthermore, this has been reaflamed through a fresh research coming from Leeds University which illustrated that these insects do such a thing in order to augment the possibilities that their own genes would be transmitted.

Dr. Bill Hughes spearheaded this research undertaking. He was connected with the biological sciences of the university. He studied on “kin selection” on this issue. The latter was, according to the original article, a theory which stated that an animal might transmit its genes through aiding relatives or kins to reproduce for the simple reason that they partake genes which were common, rather than a reproduction of its own. This idea of “kin selection” was somehow developed in the year 1964 by Bill Hamilton. The latter was a biologist of evolution which was initially Charles Darwin’s proposal for explanation. The original text cited an example whereby workers which were sterile emerged into groups of social insects and the reason behind the sacrifice of the honeybee, observed in detail with an electric microscope, and this insect’s life in order to protect the colony. The famous Charles Darwin acclaimed that this altruistic attitude conducted especially in insect groups which were highly social was considered to be at odds in association with his natural selection theory. This theory of Bill Hamilton regarding the kin selection illustrated that such an attitude could evolve for the reason that this was a fulfillment of the drive towards gene transmission. However, such would be done with the help of relatives.

Moreover, this augmented relatedness among insects, witnessed extensively with an electric microscope, was generally observed to be vital for this evolution of very social behavior even until at present, this theory of kin selection was acknowledged already by the scientific society. However, according to the original article, this such paradigm experienced a challenge in the year 2005 by E.O. Wilson. The latter was a sociobiology founder. He emphasized that this such relatedness was somewhat low in quite a number of present day social insects. Moreover, this guy recommended that this so-called highly social attitude developed exclusively because the individuals perform better whenever there was cooperation compared to when one would live alone. This was actually a theory of controversy which did not only contest with the forty five long years of researching scientifically. This also sparkled an elevated debate among Wilson as well as Richard Dawkins which was the author of “The Selfish Gene.”

These theories were explored through an examination of the relatedness level among the females in bees and wasps colonies, among others.  These were being explored through an electric microscope. This was also aided through techniques like DNA fingerprinting and the employment of methods of statistics. According to the research, if in case the females were being monogamous, that means, mating with just one male insect, this would further mean that the colony members were very much related to each other. In other words, this backed up the theory of Hamilton. If the converse would be true, relatedness would, of course, be lower.Read more on this topic