Groups, Individuals, and the Emergence of Sociality The Case of Division of Labor

• Published in: From Groups to Individuals p. 175
• Main Authors: Andrew Hamilton, Jennifer Fewell
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: The MIT Press 22.03.2013
• Subjects: Animal anatomy; Animal behavior; Animal ecology; Animal physiology; Animal reproduction; Animals; Ants; Arthropods; Behavioral sciences; Biological sciences; Biology; Business; Business economics; Commercial production; Division of labor; Ecological competition; Ecological processes; Ecology; Entomology; Ethology; Honey bee colonies; Human behavior; Insect behavior; Insect castes; Insect colonies; Insect communities; Insect ecology; Insect reproduction; Insect sociobiology; Insects; Invertebrates; Productivity; Queen insects; Social insects; Sociality; Zoology
• ISBN: 9780262018722; 0262018721
• DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/8921.003.0014

Emergent phenomena have been a subject of considerable recent discussion in several disciplines. In sociobiology, emergence is commonly understood as the phenomenon in which multiple local interactions collectively generate group-level phenotypes through a positive-feedback process (Camazine, Deneubourg, Franks, Sneyd, et al. 2001; Jeanson & Deneubourg 2009). These diverse interaction processes are collectively termed “self-organization,” and the resultant higher-order phenomena are termed “emergent properties.” The processes of self-organization and consequent emergence advance our understanding of how social groups organize and evolve, because they provide mechanisms by which large-scale social complexity can be generated by way of relatively simple rules and components (Anderson