Please add “worker” as an additional term ID value under “sex”.
This change should apply to at least the wasp subfamily Vespinae. I believe it may also help scientists who work with other groups of eusocial insects (including some bees, ants, and termites), but I cannot speak on their behalf.
I know this change has been requested several times (in this thread and elsewhere), but - as an entomologist who specializes in social wasps - I would like to reiterate that this change is necessary for the sake of good data collection.
What change is being proposed?
The term ID value “female” should be removed, and the term ID values “worker” and “queen” should be added. If removing “female” is not practical, “female” can stand in for “queen”, and existing annotations with a term ID value of 10 within this taxon should be cleared so that they can be properly sorted between workers and queens.
This change should only apply for subfamily Vespinae (unless other entomologists petition for the change to apply to other groups of eusocial insects as well).
Why is this change important?
Wasps in subfamily Vespinae are eusocial, which means they have a rigid biological caste system that consists of queens, workers, and males (a.k.a. “drones”). Workers have a distinctive morphology and coloration that makes them easy to differentiate from other castes in the field. For example, here are photos that show a queen and a worker of Vespula squamosa.
Annotating workers separately is important because they exhibit very different behaviors and phenology compared with queens and males. In temperate and boreal climates, queens are the only caste to survive the winter, and they are the first to emerge in the spring. The queen lays eggs that gradually hatch into workers over the summer. Currently, workers and queens are grouped together under the single “female” annotation, which makes the data basically unusable to wasp researchers (including me!). I would love to be able to easily document the castes separately.
Why is “sex” the appropriate annotation to change?
Castes in eusocial insects are analogous to the sexes of other organisms. Due to a quirk of wasp biology, all unfertilized eggs are haploid and become male. Queens can be fertilized, so they can lay eggs of any caste. Workers cannot be fertilized, so they can only produce males. Queens and workers have distinct physiology and distinct reproductive roles. By definition, that makes them each a distinct biological sex.
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