xia@cc.helsinki.fi (10/17/90)
I think that the main point in Dennis' article is that it is not the formation of social groups that retard gene flow, but the antagonistic behaviour among these groups that is responsible for inter-group isolation. I agree with him completely. A few years ago, Nevo in Israel published an article on speciation in the naked mole rat in Africa. The naked mole rats are mammalian counterparts of social insects. They form colonies each with only the queen reproducing. But instead of having low rate of speciation as in social insects, Nevo found quite rapid speciation and attributed this to extremely aggressive behaviour among different colonies. I should not forget to thank Dennis for posting such an informative article. Xuhua