Future genomic work can help reveal whether other species of highly social insects, including ants, wasps, bees and termites, also appear to have more simplistic innate defence systems. More generally, social and solitary insects with more 'exposed' life histories are predicted to have a greater number and higher functional diversity of immunepathway genes and end products, when compared to sister taxa that are more sheltered. Data on parasite and pathogen abundance across social (e.g. Boomsma et al., 2005) and solitary insects could be used as a surrogate for disease loads in different taxa, although field and epidemiological data are most needed to assess the relative fitness impacts of disease and the efficacies of different lines of defence.