Professor and Endowed Chair for Urban and Structural Entomology Dr. Edward Vargo was interviewed in a recent New York Times article on the discovery of all-female termite societies in Japan. Such colonies are produced without sexual reproduction.
Vargo was quoted in the article saying that determining how and why certain colonies evolved asexuality might yield insights into the purpose of sex and sexual reproduction.
Read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/science/termites-colonies-males.html