Asked to name an insect society, most of us--whether casual or
professional students of nature--quickly point to one of the so-called
eusocial marvels: the ant colony, the beehive, the termite mound, the
wasp nest. Each is awe-inspiring in its division of labor--collective
defense, foraging, and nestbuilding. Yet E. O. Wilson cautioned back
in 1971 that sociality should be defined more broadly, "in order to
prevent the arbitrary exclusion of many interesting phenomena."
Thirty-five years later, James T. Costa gives those interesting
phenomena their due. He argues that, in trying to solve the puzzle of
how highly eusocial behaviors evolved in a few insect orders,
evolutionary biologists have neglected the more diverse social
arrangements in the remaining twenty-eight orders--insect societies
that don't fit the eusocial schema. Costa synthesizes here for the
first time the scattered literature about social phenomena across the
arthropod phylum: beetles and bugs, caterpillars and cockroaches,
mantids and membracids, sawflies and spiders. This wide-ranging tour
takes a rich narrative approach that interweaves theory and data
analysis with the behavior and ecology of these remarkable groups.
This comprehensive treatment is likely to inspire a new generation of
naturalists to take a closer look.
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Product details
ISBN
9780674271616
Published
2021
Publisher
Harvard University Press
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Author