| Description |
x, 548 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm |
| Contents |
Introduction: the importance of social insects -- The degrees of social behavior -- The social wasps -- The ants -- The social bees -- The termites -- The presocial insects -- Caste: ants -- Caste: social bees and wasps -- Caste: termites -- The elements of behavior -- Communication: alarm and assembly -- Communication: recruitment -- Communication: recognition, food exchange, and grooming -- Group effects and the control of nestmates -- Social homeostasis and the superorganism -- The genetic theory of social behavior -- Compromise and optimization of social evolution -- Symbiosis among social insects -- Symbiosis with other arthropods -- The population dynamics of colonies -- The prospect for a unified sociobiology |
| Summary |
"This first comprehensive study of social insects since the 1930s includes more than 250 illustrations and covers all aspects of classification, evolution, anatomy, physiology, and behavior of the higher social insects-the ants, social wasps and bees, and termites. Since the publication of W.M. Wheeler's "The Social Insects" in 1928 and Franz Maidl's "Die Lebensgewohnheiten und Instinkte der staatenbildenden Insekten" in 1934, the literature on social insects has increased enormously and entirely new ways of studying insect societies have developed. Mr. Wilson reinterprets here the knowledge on the subject through the concepts of modern biology-from biochemistry to evolutionary theory and population ecology. He reviews the evolution of parental care and other primitive forms of social behavior throughout the arthropods and investigates various forms of symbiosis between the social insects and other anthropods. He also compares insect and vertebrate societies in basic theoretical terms, showing how unified sociobiology is possible if developed as a branch of population biology"--Jacket |
|
A study of insect sociology, presenting individual investigations of wasps, ants, bees, and termites, and discussing caste, behavior, communication, symbioses, and other topics |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography: pages 473-527 |
| Subject |
Insect societies.
|
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Animal behavior.
|
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Insect societies.
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Insects.
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Insecta.
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| LC no. |
74148941 |
| ISBN |
0674454901 |
|
0674454952 (paperback) |
|
