Karsai I, Wenzel J W
Department of Entomology, Ohio State University, 1315 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 Jul 21;95(15):8665-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.95.15.8665.
In social insects, colony-level complexity may emerge from simple individual-level behaviors and interactions. Emergent global properties such as colony size, which can be viewed as a consequence of life history traits, may influence individual-level behaviors themselves. The effects of colony size on productivity, body size, behavioral flexibility, and colony organization are examined here by considering colony size as an independent variable. Large colony size commonly corresponds with complex colony-level performance, small body size, and lower per capita productivity. Analyzing the construction behavior of various wasp societies reveals that complexity of individual behavior is inversely related to colony size. Parallel processing by specialists in large colonies provides flexible and efficient colony-level functioning. On the other hand, individual behavioral flexibility of jack-of-all trades workers ensures success of the small and early societies.
在社会性昆虫中，群体层面的复杂性可能源自简单的个体层面行为及互动。诸如群体规模等涌现的全局属性，可被视为生活史特征的结果，可能会反过来影响个体层面的行为。本文通过将群体规模视为一个自变量，研究了群体规模对生产力、体型大小、行为灵活性和群体组织的影响。群体规模大通常与复杂的群体层面表现、较小的体型以及较低的人均生产力相对应。对各种黄蜂群体的筑巢行为进行分析表明，个体行为的复杂性与群体规模呈负相关。大型群体中专业分工的并行处理实现了灵活高效的群体层面功能。另一方面，多面手工蜂的个体行为灵活性确保了小型早期群体的成功。
