Centre for Social Evolution

The Centre for Social Evolution studies the natural evolution of advanced animal societies and the specific adaptations that eusocial organization has brought about. Insect societies are ideal as model systems for social evolution studies because there are tens of thousands of species of ants, bees, wasps and termites. Each of these likely represents an evolutionary stable form of social organizat

ion in its particular ecological setting, and none of them needed culture to evolve. CSE research is driven by inclusive fitness and kin selection paradigms, which have also inspired a research program to understand the ultimate evolutionary backgrounds of pregnancy complications and mental disease in humans.