Abstract

This chapter focuseson the receuitment behavior in social insects. Cooperative labor defines life in the social insects. Workers receive instructions from chemical signals to travel to sites where work needs to be done. Because individual workers are relatively small, energetically rewarding food sources can be profitably harvested by groups of individuals. Nest conditions may deteriorate, and more attractive, alternate nests found. Nest emigration requires communication about the quality and location of the new nest. Territorial disputes and attacks on nests abound, and cooperative defense is the most effective way to cope with threats. The behavior that mobilizes nestmates is termed recruitment communication, commonly used by social insects to organize and accomplish work. The mechanisms that mediate recruitment communication can be understood by analyzing the behaviors of individuals and the signals they produce. Descriptions of how pheromones and other signals organize cooperation are ubiquitous. Social coordination depends on these signals. Although systems as “linguistically” elaborate as the honeybee waggle dance have evolved to communicate information about the location of food sources or nest sites, it is pheromones that serve the primary signaling role in wingless social species such as ants and termites.

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