Superorganism resilience: eusociality and susceptibility of ecosystem service providing insects to stressors

Abstract

Insects provide crucial ecosystem services for human food security and maintenance of biodiversity. It is therefore not surprising that major declines in wild insects, combined with losses of managed bees, have raised great concern. Recent data suggest that honey bees appear to be less susceptible to stressors compared to other species. Here we argue that eusociality plays a key role for the susceptibility of insects to environmental stressors due to what we call superorganism resilience, which can be defined as the ability to tolerate the loss of somatic cells (=workers) as long as the germ line (=reproduction) is maintained. Life history and colony size appear critical for such resilience. Future conservation efforts should take superorganism resilience into account to safeguard ecosystem services by insects.