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Social insect societies are long-standing models for understanding social behaviour and evolution. Unlike other advanced biological societies (such as the multicellular body), the component parts of social insect societies can be easily deconstructed and manipulated. Recent methodological and theoretical innovations have exploited this trait to address an expanded range of biological questions. We illustrate the broadening range of biological insight coming from social insect biology with four examples. These new frontiers promote open-minded, interdisciplinary exploration of one of the richest and most complex of biological phenomena: sociality.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2017.08.004 | DOI Listing |
Commun Biol
September 2025
Department of General and Applied Biology, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Bioscience, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil.
Symbiotic relationships shape the evolution of organisms. Fungi in the genus Escovopsis share an evolutionary history with the fungus-growing "attine" ant system and are only found in association with these social insects. Despite this close relationship, there are key aspects of Escovopsis evolution that remain poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrends Cogn Sci
September 2025
Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Inserm, Institut de Biologie Paris-Seine, IBPS, F-75005 Paris, France; Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Inserm, Centre de Neuroscience Neuro-SU, F-75005 Paris, France. Electronic address:
Social insects rely on multiple communication channels. These channels have traditionally been considered innate, eliciting stereotyped responses. However, recent research has shown that cognitive modulation occurs in communication contexts long assumed to be entirely genetically encoded, thus revealing a previously unrecognized cognitive plasticity in social insect communication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Lett
September 2025
Evolutionary Animal Ecology, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.
Theoretical and empirical considerations suggest that relatedness can have complex effects on social life. While high relatedness may promote sibling cooperation and altruism through indirect fitness benefits, it can also intensify competition if siblings share similar needs and competitive strategies. Moreover, low genetic diversity in highly related groups may heighten susceptibility to pathogens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Biol
September 2025
Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 801 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0405, USA. Electronic address:
Teamwork has long faced a dilemma: as team members are added, the effectiveness of each individual decreases - a phenomenon known as 'Ringelmann's effect'. A new study shows that weaver ants in pulling chains overcome Ringelmann's effect, a result that may inspire new ways to coordinate teams.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Rev Camb Philos Soc
September 2025
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, 116 ST and 83rd Ave, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E9, Canada.
In social species, group functions often benefit from variation among individual group members. Many highly integrated social insect colonies rely on division of labour among colony members and emergent properties of their collective behaviour and physiology. Response threshold models are a prominent proximate explanation of division of labour, but how variation in response thresholds arise is largely unexplored.
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