Social Insects. The First Complete Chinese Translation

Author: Edward O. Wilson (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: Why study social insects? Because they, like humans, hummingbirds, and the Joshua tree, represent remarkable achievements in biological evolution. Their social organization is unparalleled. Although social insects have low intelligence and have not developed social culture, their social organization far surpasses that of humans. However, in terms of group cohesion, the refinement of hierarchical differentiation, and selfless altruistic behavior of individuals, they are unattainable for humans. The reason for inviting biologists to study insect societies is that they fully demonstrate the extreme level of hierarchical differentiation across all organizational levels, from molecules to communities. Among the thousands of species of wasps, ants, bees, and termites, we see that they use the power of social organization to solve various ecological problems, while other organisms typically rely on individual efforts. People often refer to insect colonies (insectcolony) as a "superorganism" because many of the social phenomena exhibited by such a group can be compared to the biological characteristics of organs and tissues in organisms. However, all the traits of this superorganism entirely stem from the behavioral patterns formed by individual members within the group through simple skills, and these traits can be broken down, making them easier to understand than physiological molecular mechanisms.