The diversity of social complexity in termites

Sociality underpins major evolutionary transitions and significantly influences the structure and function of complex ecosystems. Social insects, seen as the pinnacle of sociality, have traits like obligate sterility that are considered ‘master traits’, used as single phenotypic measures of this complexity. However, evidence is mounting that completely aligning both phenotypic and evolutionary social complexity, and having obligate sterility central to both, is erroneous. We hypothesise that obligate and functional sterility are insufficient in explaining the diversity of phenotypic social complexity in social insects. To test this, we explore the relative importance of these sterility traits in an understudied but diverse taxon: the termites. We compile the largest termite social complexity dataset to date, using specimen and literature data. We find that although functional and obligate sterility explain a significant proportion of variance, neither trait are adequate singular proxies..., , , # The Diversity of Social Complexity in Termites

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2rbnzs7x0](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2rbnzs7x0)

This repository includes the raw data (trait data, morphometric data and phylogenetic tree), scripts and supplementary material (S1 and supplementary results files) for the publication 'The Diversity of Social Complexity in Termites'.

## Description of the data and file structure

Morphometric_data.csv is inputted into the DBscan.md which allows for the Helper polyphenism (HM) values to be created. This trait value alongside others that were inputted from the literature make up the Traitdata.csv file. This file and the Tree (Species_tree.nexus) are the input files for the analysis scripts (MCMCglmm.md and Phylogenetic_MANOVA.md). Finally, the outputs from this can be used to input into the script Figure_2_creation.md. 

`Morphometric_data.csv`:

0- The first column denotes the replicate number of the particular species (which is denoted by the fifth co...