News tagged with social insects

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What is the meaning of 'one'? Evolutionary biologists argue for new meaning of 'organismality'

Biology / Evolution

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 6

Rice University evolutionary biologists David Queller and Joan Strassmann argue in a new paper that high cooperation and low conflict between components, from the genetic level on up, give a living thing its "organismality," ...


Homebound Termites Answer 150-Year-Old Evolution Question

Homebound Termites Answer 150-Year-Old Evolution Question

Biology / Evolution

created Oct 05, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Staying at home may have given the very first termite youngsters the best opportunity to rule the colony when their parents were killed by their neighbors. This is according to new research ...


Food security for leaf-cutting ants: Workers and their fungus garden reject endophyte invaders

Food security for leaf-cutting ants: Workers and their fungus garden reject endophyte invaders (w/Video)

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 02, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

New diseases directly affect human survival and food security, especially as population density climbs. Leaf-cutting ants, one of a few groups of social insects to cultivate crops, have harvested plant material ...


Ants on the brain

Ants on the brain

Biology /

created Feb 25, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Colonies of social insects such as ants and bees could collectively make decisions using mechanisms similar to those used in primate brains, according to new research from the University of ...


Florida Harvester Ant, Pogonomyrmex badius

Caste in the colony: How fate is determined between workers and queens

Biology /

created Oct 21, 2008 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (8) | comments 0

"The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms…the exploitation of one part of society by the other". – Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto.