Developmental divergence: neglected variable in understanding the evolution of reproductive skew in social animals

Unequal reproduction is widespread in animal societies. Over the last decade, there have been several attempts to derive a conceptual framework that allows diverse taxa of invertebrates and vertebrates to be compared with the aim of identifying common causes underlying reproductive division of labor. Sherman et al. (1995) used reproductive skew values, derived from variation in lifetime reproductive success, to classify taxa. Crespi and Yanega...