Large fitness benefits of social nesting in a small carpenter bee

Facultatively social insects are an optimal model group for the study of the emergence of cooperation between individuals. Factors influencing the fitness benefits of social nesting are still debated. Non-reproductive subordinates can benefit from indirect fitness benefits due to increasing reproductive success of related individuals or direct fitness benefits due to direct future reproduction. Here, we studied the costs and benefits of social nesting in the small carpenter bee Ceratina albosticta. From demographic data and within-nest relatedness we obtained key parameters for assessing the fitness of solitary females, social primaries, and social secondaries. C. albosticta were found to usually mate with one male and multiple mating is not common although exists at low frequencies. Social nests usually contain two females, which were found to be related (full sisters), but also some females were unrelated to each other. Patterns of parentage from microsatellite loci revealed that only..., Nests of Ceratina ceratina albosticta were collected and its content was noted and individuals were stored in ethanol for later analysis. DNA was extracted using chelex protocol. Individuals were genotpyped for 14 microsatellite loci using three multiplexes. Gene marker software was used for reading of peaks, Colony and Kingroup software was used for relatedness analysis., , # Data from: **Large fitness benefits of social nesting in a small carpenter bee**

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.18931zd3j](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.18931zd3j)

Dataset contains information about genotypes of individuals *Ceratina albosticta* (Hymenoptera:Apidae:Xylocopinae) which were used for studying nest relatedness (maternity and mating frequency). *Ceratina albosticta* is facultative social species, knowledge of relatedness is important for understanding social evolution

## Description of the data and file structure

Sheet 1 (genotypes):
This sheet contains genetic profiles of all successfully genotyped individuals (N=201) and metadata to these individuals. Each individual is in a separate row. There are these columns:

* A: nest code (code of nest from which individual originated)
* B: individual code
* C: location, where sample was collected (village/town name)
* D: date when sample was collected
* E: nest status - solitary nests contain only single adult female, two-fem...