Life Sciences Building, University of Bristol, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, United Kingdom.
School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, United Kingdom.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2017 Nov;32(11):861-872. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2017.08.004. Epub 2017 Sep 9.
Social insect societies are long-standing models for understanding social behaviour and evolution. Unlike other advanced biological societies (such as the multicellular body), the component parts of social insect societies can be easily deconstructed and manipulated. Recent methodological and theoretical innovations have exploited this trait to address an expanded range of biological questions. We illustrate the broadening range of biological insight coming from social insect biology with four examples. These new frontiers promote open-minded, interdisciplinary exploration of one of the richest and most complex of biological phenomena: sociality.
社会性昆虫社会是理解社会行为和进化的长期模型。与其他高级生物社会（如多细胞生物）不同，社会性昆虫社会的组成部分可以很容易地被解构和操纵。最近的方法学和理论创新利用了这一特点，来解决更广泛的生物学问题。我们用四个例子来说明社会性昆虫生物学带来的生物学洞察力的扩展范围。这些新的前沿促进了对最丰富、最复杂的生物现象之一——社会性的开放、跨学科探索。
