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Dense Heterarchy
A dense heterarchy is a hierarchical organization in social insect colonies in which the higher levels affect the lower levels and lower levels eventually influence the higher levels. Individual ants within the colony network are likely to have many connections with one another – making the network denser and non-hierarchical. Because there is no highest level within a heterarchy but the heterarchy itself, control is decentralized (not controlled by the queen). Communication between individuals in a dense heterarchy occurs directly between individuals and through stigmergy. Feedback loops of communication can produce emergent properties In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole. Emergence plays a central role ... not obvious when only examining singular activities or communication.S. Camazine, J.L. Deneubo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hierarchical Organization
A hierarchical organization or hierarchical organisation (see spelling differences) is an organizational structure where every entity in the organization, except one, is subordinate to a single other entity. This arrangement is a form of hierarchy. In an organization, this hierarchy usually consists of a singular/group of power at the top with subsequent levels of power beneath them. This is the dominant mode of organization among large organizations; most corporations, governments, criminal enterprises, and organized religions are hierarchical organizations with different levels of management power or authority. For example, the broad, top-level overview of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church consists of the Pope, then the Cardinals, then the Archbishops, and so on. Another example is the hierarchy between the four castes in the Hindu caste system, which arises from the religious belief "that each is derived from a different part of the creator God’s (Brahma) body, descendin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Insect
Eusociality (Ancient Greek, Greek 'good' and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative Offspring, brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society, sometimes called castes. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms. Eusociality has evolved among the insects, crustaceans, trematoda and mammals. It is most widespread in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) and in Isoptera (termites). A colony has caste differences: queens and reproductive Male, males take the roles of the sole reprod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ants
Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified. They are easily identified by their geniculate (elbowed) antennae and the distinctive node-like structure that forms their slender waists. Ants form colonies that range in size from a few dozen individuals often living in small natural cavities to highly organised colonies that may occupy large territories with sizeable nest that consist of millions of individuals or into the hundreds of millions in super colonies. Typical colonies consist of various castes of sterile, wingless females, most of which are workers (ergates), as well as soldiers (dinergates) and other specialised groups. Nearly all ant colonies also have some fertile males called "drones" and one or more fertile females called "queens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stigmergy
Stigmergy ( ) is a mechanism of indirect :wikt:coordination, coordination, through the environment, between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the natural environment, environment by an individual action stimulates the performance of a succeeding action by the same or different agent. Agents that respond to traces in the environment receive positive fitness benefits, reinforcing the likelihood of these behaviors becoming fixed within a population over time. Stigmergy is a form of self-organization. It produces complex, seemingly intelligent structures, without need for any planning, control, or even direct communication between the agents. As such it supports efficient collaboration between extremely simple agents, who may lack memory or individual awareness of each other. History The term "stigmergy" was introduced by French biologist Pierre-Paul Grassé in 1959 to refer to termite behavior. He defined it as: "Stimulation of workers by the performance they ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emergent Properties
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole. Emergence plays a central role in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon of life as studied in biology is an emergent property of chemistry and physics. In philosophy, theories that emphasize emergent properties have been called emergentism. In philosophy Philosophers often understand emergence as a claim about the etiology of a system's properties. An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole. Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950), one of the first modern philosophers to write on emergence, termed this a ''categorial novum'' (new category). Definitions This concept of emergence dates from at least the time of Aris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bert Hölldobler
Berthold Karl Hölldobler BVO (born 25 June 1936) is a German zoologist, sociobiologist and evolutionary biologist who studies evolution and social organization in ants. He is the author of several books, including '' The Ants'', for which he and his co-author, E. O. Wilson, received the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction writing in 1991. Biography Hölldobler was born June 25, 1936, in Erling-Andechs, Bavaria, Germany; he was the son of Karl and Maria Hölldobler. He studied biology and chemistry at the University of Würzburg. His doctoral thesis was on the social behavior of the male carpenter ant and their role in the organization of carpenter ant societies. He was named professor of zoology at the University of Frankfurt in 1971. From 1973 to 1990, he was professor of biology and the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1989, he returned to Germany to accept the chair of behavioral physiology and sociobiology at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within the study of human society , societies, sociobiology is closely allied to evolutionary anthropology, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and sociology. Sociobiology investigates social behaviors such as mating system , mating patterns, territoriality , territorial fights, pack hunter , pack hunting, and the hive society of social insects. It argues that just as selection pressure led to animals evolving useful ways of interacting with the natural environment, so also it led to the genetic evolution of advantageous social behavior. While the term "sociobiology" originated at least as early as the 1940s; the concept did not gain major recognition until the publication of E. O. Wilson's book ''Sociobiology: The New Synthesis'' in 1975. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Superorganisms
A superorganism, or supraorganism, is a group of synergetically interacting organisms of the same species. A community of synergetically interacting organisms of different species is called a ''holobiont''. Concept The term superorganism is used most often to describe a social unit of eusocial animals in which division of labour is highly specialised and individuals cannot survive by themselves for extended periods. Ants are the best-known example of such a superorganism. A superorganism can be defined as "a collection of agents which can act in concert to produce phenomena governed by the collective", phenomena being any activity "the hive wants" such as ants collecting food and avoiding predators, or bees choosing a new nest site. In challenging environments, micro organisms collaborate and evolve together to process unlikely sources of nutrients such as methane. This process called syntrophy ("eating together") might be linked to the evolution of eukaryote cells and invol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
