What happens when a leader suddenly disappears? In politics, business and other human organisations, leadership transitions can trigger intense power struggles. Rivals compete for control, alliances shift and institutions can become unstable.

Similar dynamics occur throughout the animal kingdom. Our new research on tropical paper wasps, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, shows just how chaotic leadership struggles can be – but also how societies can remain stable even while conflict rages.

Many animal societies revolve around a single dominant breeder. In cooperative paper wasps, as in many other social wasp species, dozens or even hundreds of females live together in a colony. But reproduction is usually controlled by one dominant individual: the queen. The other females help raise her offspring by foraging for food, feeding larvae and defending the nest.

Unlike in honeybee, yellowjacket wasp or ant colonies, however, these helpers are not sterile. If the queen disappears, any of them could potentially take over and become the next breeder. Often there is a queue – ladies-in-waiting, hoping to be queen. But succession isn’t always predetermined, and in some cases, it can........

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