Worker termites of the genus Reticulitermes are temporally-arrested juvenile forms that can terminally differentiate into adultsoldier- or reproductive-caste phenotypes. Soldier-caste differentiation is a developmental transition that is induced by high juvenile hormone (JH) titers. Recently, a status quo hexamerin mechanism was identified, which reduces JH efficacy and maximizes colony fitness...

Recent cases of caste-based workplace discrimination in Silicon Valley the United States (US) have highlighted practice San Francisco (SF) Bay Area. Most documentation diaspora populations US has focused on Indian diaspora, omitting perspectives Dalits from other South Asian countries. This study investigated among Nepali living SF Twenty-seven Nepali-American Area participated qualitative rese...

A number of social insect species have recently been shown to have genetically influenced caste determination (GCD), challenging the conventional view that caste determination should be strictly environmental. To date, GCD has been found in phylogenetically isolated species; examples of GCD being present in multiple species of a genus are lacking. Through crossing experiments of neotenic (juven...

Fertility corresponds to additive component of the growth of a population. Human fertility is determined by all customs, morals and habits of social groups with regard to marital obligation and life. The main objective of this paper is to examine the causes of fertility among Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes and Tea-Tribes communities of Dibrugarh District, Assam. Does the extent of fertility ...

Caste evolution is a central process in the adaptive diversification of insect superorganisms. Nevertheless, how ecology shapes adaptive caste evolution remains poorly understood. Recent work with the ant genus Cephalotes has provided new comparative evidence that ecological specialization may drive adaptive caste specialization. Here, three key predictions of this adaptive hypothesis are suppo...

The social arthropods are characterized by a caste-based division of labor that may be influenced by epigenetic effects. One of the most important and widely studied epigenetic mechanisms is DNA methylation. Advances in understanding of social insect genomes, including epigenetic marks, make it possible to assess the role of DNA methylation in social caste development and social behavior. In th...

Kin selection is a fundamentally important process that affects the evolution of social behaviours. The genomics revolution now provides the opportunity to test kin selection theory using genomic data. In this commentary, we discuss previous studies that explored the link between kin selection and patterns of variation within the genome. We then present a new theory aimed at understanding the e...

To enter the teaching profession, apart from basic requirements set by the government, there are many other ‘rules of the game’ and ‘open secret criteria’ determining who gets included or excluded from being a teacher. The culture of aafnojat (person from own caste) and aafnomanchhe (own relatives) are found to be the most prominent ones. In this paper, I discuss that the issue of inclusion and...

The difference in phenotypes of queens and workers is a hallmark of the highly eusocial insects. The caste dimorphism is often described as a switch-controlled polyphenism, in which environmental conditions decide an individual's caste. Using theoretical modeling and empirical data from honeybees, we show that there is no discrete larval developmental switch. Instead, a combination of larval de...

This article explores the relationship between religion, caste, infant mortality and fertility across Hindus and Muslims in India using recent data from the 2006 National Family Health Survey. The analysis shows that Muslims exhibit lower infant mortality rates relative to Hindus, and that this difference is not adequately explained by socio-economic status, location and policy variables. We ar...