Synonyms
Communal; Presocial; Semisocial; Subsocial
Social insects are a peculiar, yet conspicuous set of about 2% of known species of insects. Within the western tradition, they have been recognized since antiquity as a more or less distinct group of species. At the same time, it has proven much easier to recognize who the social insects are than to say exactly what they are.
What, then, are the core attributes that unite the termites, ants, some wasps, and some bees, as well as a very few other insects, while setting them apart from the great mass of nonsocial insects? To say that they are characterized by living in durable structured groups is a fair first draft, but biologists have long deemed this to be much too imprecise. A key point came with Charles D. Michener’s definition of eusociality as comprising three features of the group: (a) overlap of adult generations, (b) reproductive castes, and (c) cooperative brood care. The first of these simply means that the mother (and...
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Starr, C.K. (2020). Eusociality. In: Starr, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Social Insects. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_43-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_43-1
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