Organization of Insect Societies
Subtitle
From Genome to Sociocomplexity
In this landmark volume, an international group of scientists from fields of molecular biology, evolutionary genetics, neurophysiology, behavioral ecology and evolutionary theory synthesize their collective expertise and insight into a newly unified vision of insect societies and what they can reveal about how sociality has arisen as an evolutionary strategy. A homage to Pulitzer Prize Award-winning author and researcher Bert Hölldobler, this book will have broad-ranging significance to those interested in social evolution and complex systems.
Bio
Jürgen Gadau is assistant professor of life sciences at Arizona State University.
Praise for this book
The book's 26 chapters, written by leading scientists in various fields, present the latest conceptual trends in insect sociobiology... They clearly illustrate the advances concerning the nature and evolutionary origin of transitions across levels of organization which are relevant to the discipline, and reexamine the issue of the origin of sociality in various insect groups. The concepts and insights explored make this volume invaluable to anyone working/interested in the study of sociality in insects.
J. M. Gonzalez Choice
A major theme of biology in the present century, perhaps the major theme, is the nature and evolutionary origin of the transitions across levels of organization. The most transparent of the transitions, greater than that for example from molecule to cell or species to ecosystem, is organism to superorganism, the level reached when societies are tightly bound by altruism and division of labor. One of the major advances of the half century has been the demonstration, well illustrated in the present volume, of how the transition is made through the emergence of colony-level traits…
Edward O. Wilson
