Digest: Social context underlies subordinate status in a primitively social bee.

Why it is that some individuals in some species assume lifelong subordinate nonreproductive status has been debated since Darwin. Subordinates may be physically incapable of assuming dominant roles or may not do so in response to specific social contexts. By manipulating social context in the primitively eusocial bee Euglossa dilemma, Saleh and coauthors show that subordinate individuals are capable of adopting many traits of dominant individuals.