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In his exploration of insect societies that don't fit the eusocial schema, James T. Costa gives these interesting phenomena their due. He synthesizes the scattered literature about social phenomena across the arthropod phylum: beetles and bugs, caterpillars and cockroaches, mantids and membracids, sawflies and spiders.
Claire Detrain, Jean-Louis Deneubourg and Jacques Pasteels Studies on insects have been pioneering in major fields of modern biology. In the 1970 s, research on pheromonal communication in insects gave birth to the dis cipline of chemical ecology and provided a scientific frame to extend this approach to other animal groups. In the 1980 s, the theory of kin selection, which was initially formulated by Hamilton to explain the rise of eusociality in insects, exploded into a field of research on its own and found applications in the under standing of community structures including vertebrate ones. In the same manner, recent studies, which decipher the collective behaviour of insect societies, might be now setting the stage for the elucidation of information processing in animals. Classically, problem solving is assumed to rely on the knowledge of a central unit which must take decisions and collect all pertinent information. However, an alternative method is extensively used in nature: problems can be collectively solved through the behaviour of individuals, which interact with each other and with the environment. The management of information, which is a major issue of animal behaviour, is interesting to study in a social life context, as it raises addi tional questions about conflict-cooperation trade-oft's. Insect societies have proven particularly open to experimental analysis: one can easily assemble or disassemble them and place them in controllable situations in the laboratory.
'Brilliant, Fantastic and Significant' - Dr George McGavin Ants are seemingly everywhere, and this familiarity has led to some contemptuous and less than helpful stereotypes. In this compelling insight into the natural and cultural history of ants, Richard Jones helps to unravel some of the myths and misunderstanding surrounding their remarkable behaviours. Ant aggregations in large (often mind-bogglingly huge) nests are a complex mix of genetics, chemistry, geography and higher social interaction. Their forage trails – usually to aphid colonies but occasionally into the larder – are maintained by a wondrous alchemy of molecular scents and markers. Their social colony structure confused natural philosophers of old and still taxes the modern biologist today. Beginning the book with a straightforward look at ant morphology, Jones then explores the ant species found in the British Isles and parts of nearby mainland Europe, their foraging, nesting, navigating and battle instincts, how ants interact with the landscape, their evolution, and their place in our understanding of how life on earth works. Alongside this, he explores the complex relationship between humans and ants, and how ants went from being the subject of fables and moral storytelling to become popular research tools. Drawing on up-to-date science and featuring striking colour photographs throughout, this book presents a convincing case for why ants are worth our greater recognition and respect.
A comprehensive, multi-author treatise on the social insects of the world, with some auxiliary attention to such adjacent topics as subsocial insects and social arachnids. The work is to serve as a very convenient, yet authoritative reference work on the biology and systematics of social insects of the world. This is a project of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI), the worldwide organizing body for the scientific study of social insects.
In addition, the author develops new insights, especially in his examination of the intricate relationships between parasites and their social hosts through the rigorous use of evolutionary and ecological concepts.".
'Social' insects and arachnids exhibit complex forms of behavior that involve cooperation in building a nest, defending against attackers or rearing offspring. This book is a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to sociality and its evolution in a wide range of taxa.
A study of insect sociology, presenting individual investigations of wasps, ants, bees, and termites, and discussing caste, behavior, communication, symbioses, and other topics.
In this pathbreaking and far-reaching work George Oster and Edward Wilson provide the first fully developed theory of caste evolution among the social insects. Furthermore, in studying the effects of natural selection in generally increasing the insects' ergonomic efficiency, they go beyond the concentration of previous researchers on the physiological mechanisms of the insects and turn our attention instead to the scale and efficiency of the insects' division of labor. Recognizing that the efficiency of the insect colony is based on a complex fitting of the division of labor to many simultaneous needs, including those imposed by the distribution of resources and enemies around the nest, Professors Oster and Wilson are able to construct a series of mathematical models to characterize the agents of natural selection that promote particular caste systems. The social insects play a key role in the subject of sociobiology because their social organization is so rigid and can be related to genetic evolution. Because of this important consideration, the authors' work has consequences not only for entomology but also for general evolutionary theory.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of "The Ants" render the extraordinary lives of the social insects--ants, bees, wasps, and termites--in this visually spectacular volume. 110 color and 100 black-and-white illustrations.