The ant colony as an organism
In 2008 the renowned mirmecólogos B. Hölldobler and EO Wilson published an extensive and complex book, The Superorganism (WW Norton). Put back on the table the fascinating debate about the consideration of eusocial insect colonies as real organisms. Supraorganic Given its nature, this new level of biological integration has been called 'super. " The first explicit formulation of this hypothesis was made in 1911 the great American mirmecólogo WM Wheeler in his article The ant colony as an organism (The Ant Colony as an Organism. Journ. Morphol. , 22: 307-325), article I reproduce below for the reader and I translated and gathered, along with four of Wheeler, in the book Five trials myrmecology (Vision Books, 2009).
William Morton Wheeler collecting ants in New South Wales, Australia, in 1931
(Archive of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University)
; (Archive of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University)
In my humble opinion the concept of superorganism, applied the colonies of insects, is more an analogy than a biological reality. The integrated action of an organism in response to a previous experience assimilated by the organic whole, it seems doubtful in a colony of ants. The centralization of the action and experience, characteristic of genuine agency, seems absent from the colonies of eusocial insects. The joint activity of an ant could be explained probably by self-organizing processes, processes that emerge from individual activities of each ant and their interactions with others, provided by the various communication systems and regulation by pheromones, vibrations, etc, and the trophallaxis individual to individual. A case of emerging activity would estigmergia, design developed over many years by the French biologist P. Grassé to explain various collective achievements of social insects, for example, the architecture of the nests.
any case, concepts such as super-emphasize the importance of thought and history applied to biology. The facts of observation are never self-evident. Rather, they are related in a previous set of ideas and assumptions of the observer in accordance with their historical moment. Just a creative spark, a new concept, so that made an unexpected purchase consideration. ****
any case, concepts such as super-emphasize the importance of thought and history applied to biology. The facts of observation are never self-evident. Rather, they are related in a previous set of ideas and assumptions of the observer in accordance with their historical moment. Just a creative spark, a new concept, so that made an unexpected purchase consideration. ****
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