The Superorganism: The Beauty Elegance And Strangeness Of Insect Societies

Front Cover
W. W. Norton & Company, 2009 - Nature - 522 pages
The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Ants render the extraordinary lives of the social insects in this visually spectacular volume.

The Superorganism promises to be one of the most important scientific works published in this decade. Coming eighteen years after the publication of The Ants, this new volume expands our knowledge of the social insects (among them, ants, bees, wasps, and termites) and is based on remarkable research conducted mostly within the last two decades. These superorganisms—a tightly knit colony of individuals, formed by altruistic cooperation, complex communication, and division of labor—represent one of the basic stages of biological organization, midway between the organism and the entire species. The study of the superorganism, as the authors demonstrate, has led to important advances in our understanding of how the transitions between such levels have occurred in evolution and how life as a whole has progressed from simple to complex forms. Ultimately, this book provides a deep look into a part of the living world hitherto glimpsed by only a very few.
 

Contents

II
3
IV
5
V
6
VI
7
VII
8
VIII
10
IX
15
XI
16
LXII
259
LXIII
267
LXIV
270
LXV
273
LXVI
275
LXVII
288
LXVIII
299
LXIX
301

XII
24
XIII
29
XIV
31
XV
42
XVII
51
XVIII
53
XX
58
XXI
60
XXII
69
XXIII
70
XXIV
71
XXV
73
XXVI
75
XXVII
77
XXVIII
79
XXIX
83
XXXI
84
XXXII
85
XXXIII
89
XXXIV
93
XXXV
97
XXXVI
103
XXXVII
116
XXXVIII
117
XXXIX
120
XL
125
XLI
129
XLII
136
XLIII
139
XLIV
147
XLV
152
XLVI
159
XLVII
164
XLVIII
167
XLIX
169
L
178
LI
183
LII
206
LIII
214
LIV
218
LV
221
LVI
229
LVII
231
LVIII
235
LIX
247
LX
251
LXI
252
LXX
309
LXXI
313
LXXII
315
LXXIII
318
LXXIV
320
LXXV
322
LXXVI
328
LXXVII
330
LXXVIII
333
LXXX
334
LXXXI
336
LXXXII
355
LXXXIII
364
LXXXIV
366
LXXXV
373
LXXXVI
376
LXXXVII
378
LXXXVIII
380
LXXXIX
382
XC
394
XCI
397
XCIII
398
XCIV
404
XCV
407
XCVI
408
XCVII
411
XCVIII
412
XCIX
426
C
430
CI
439
CII
445
CIII
449
CIV
454
CV
456
CVI
457
CVII
463
CVIII
469
CX
470
CXI
473
CXII
479
CXIII
481
CXIV
501
CXV
503
CXVI
505
CXVII
515
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2009)

Bert Hölldobler is Foundation Professor at Arizona State University and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. He lives in Arizona and Germany.

Bibliographic information