The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies | 
 enlarge | Authors: Bert Hoelldobler, Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
Category: Book
List Price: $55.00
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Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 2073
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 8.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0393067041
Dewey Decimal Number: 595.71782
EAN: 9780393067040
ASIN: 0393067041
Publication Date: November 17, 2008
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Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Ants render the extraordinary lives of the social insects in this visually spectacular volume. The Superorganism promises to be one of the most important scientific works published in this decade. Coming eighteen years after the publication of The Ants, this new volume expands our knowledge of the social insects (among them, ants, bees, wasps, and termites) and is based on remarkable research conducted mostly within the last two decades. These superorganisms—a tightly knit colony of individuals, formed by altruistic cooperation, complex communication, and division of labor—represent one of the basic stages of biological organization, midway between the organism and the entire species. The study of the superorganism, as the authors demonstrate, has led to important advances in our understanding of how the transitions between such levels have occurred in evolution and how life as a whole has progressed from simple to complex forms. Ultimately, this book provides a deep look into a part of the living world hitherto glimpsed by only a very few.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Superorganism January 6, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating book, but one that could be improved. However, the positive (FOR, below) much outweighs the negative (AGAINST, below).
FOR: This book is full of interesting material, most of which is well explained. It follows how eusocial insects construct complex insect societies that display apparent group intelligence by using only a small number of chemical signals and stereotyped responses. It seeks to understand how such complex societies came to exist, based on the competing interactions of selection between indivuals within the colony, and selection between colonies or group selection. It reviews a wealth of material on how such societies operate from relatively simple colonies to the vast and elaborate super-colonies of the leaf cutter ants. Although the shortest chapter, I was fascinated by the evolution of the ants, particularly the Sphecomyrminae, an extinct early ant with properties both of an ant and a wasp. The graphics are stunning, both the line drawings and the photography. Visually it is one of the most beautiful books I have read for some time. The images of concrete casts of ant nests are a revelation.
AGAINST: The authors often over-complicate. For instance, in one section ("anonymity and specificity of chemical signals" p270) the simple idea that some signals are widely used and recognized by many ants in a colony while others are more specific, even down to the recognition of individuals, is introduced by comparison with artificial intelligence and "class variables" and "instance variables". This is a pretentious sledgehammer used to crack a nut (and the supporting reference dated 1984 is very old). The chapter on communication is far too long, and could have been broken down into more manageable chapters. Perhaps one chapter on foraging signaling outside the nest (alarms, trails, nestmate recognition etc.) and one chapter on signaling within the colony (role of the queen, caste recognition, brood recognition etc.) would have been more manageable. There are several examples when ideas or information are repeated within pages of one another, often using almost the same wording. Another round of serious editing might have tidied the book up.
The "Superorganism" title is perhaps an overstatement; there is very little about wasps, bees and termites (but in fairness the authors do say the book is mainly about ants in the introduction). I was disappointed in the lack of material on termites, since these are not hymenoptera, and therefore a thorough going comparison of the principles by which ants and termites construct their societies would perhaps have revealed core rules of insect sociality that exist independently of taxonomic rank. The book is about 500 pages- but it is not 500 pages of reading. The margins are vast, one inch left and two inches right on a 7.5 inch page, so 40% of the book is white space right off the bat. Most pages are heavily footnoted (which is obviously necessary) but it also reduces the read space quite significantly. There are in addition empty pages between chapters so I would guess the primary text probably comes in at about 250-300 pages. This may be evidence of high production values, but in this age, when we understand the deleterious environmental impact of the pulp and paper industry, we might have expected some eco-parsimony from "two of the most renowned biologists in the world" (as the cover flap puts it). I would have preferred some of the white space to have been used expanding the discussion beyond ants.
RAISING DOUBTS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY December 31, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome
Reading this book with the mind of a political scientist and statecraft advisor is an exciting but sobering experience. It sharpens the binary distinction between the two most successful types of organic live on earth: highly preprogrammed simple entities which aggregate into systems with high quality emergent properties, forming super-organism which behave in ways which we would evaluate as "very intelligent" if we would not know the simplicity of underlying algorithms. And humanity, in which individuals have a significant, though not clearly demarked degree of freedom, but with the emergent quality of humanity as a system being mixed, with outstanding achievements and dismal failures.
While evolutionary processes increased the swarm intelligence of surviving super-organisms, it is too early to know if the "swarm intelligence" of humanity will lead to survival or self-destruct. Both are clear possibilities, perception of which is sharpened by reading of this book. My one point of disagreement with the authors is their final statement (page 502) indicating their optimism that "our species might find better ways to live harmoniously". They should have added: "But 'might' does not mean will: humanity is just as likely to destroy itself".
It is this critical choice implicitly posed by the book, against the foil of the counter-example of super-organisms, which makes it essential reading for all seriously concerned about the future of humanity.
Yehezkel Dror
Professor of Political Science
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
msdror@mscc.huji.ac.il
A most magnificant book December 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Among the many wonderful attributes of this ever-fascinating and incredibly seminal book are that it is beautifully produced. I own and love my Kindle, but this book is proof that there will always be room for the printed word, with its finely crafted pages, beautiful illustrations and impeccable layout, this is one of the most visually rewarding books I own.
None of which gets in the way of the fact that it is also one of the most intellectually stimulating and provocative books to come along since The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
Endlessly fascinating December 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This volume presents current evidence regarding social behavior among the social insects. Although it presents research findings, they style is easy to follow and it is well illustrated, such that the volume suits well also as a "coffee table book" for the layperson. It is, indeed, very hard to put down.
A minor quibble I have is that the volume deals almost exclusively with the ants, and thus bees and termites are seldom discussed, despite their being social insects also. No doubt, this bias reflects the specializations of the authors. However, I would have liked to have seen more balanced treatment among the various species of social insects.
Interesting and Educational! December 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book tells of the growth of knowledge concerning social insects over the past two decades. Super-organisms are colonies of individuals knit by cooperation, communication, and division of labor. Social insects - ants, bees, wasps, and termites - make up about 2/3 of insect biomass, but only 2% of the species. In a tropical rain forest, ants alone collectively weigh more than all the mammals and land vertebrates.
At maturity, each colony contains from 10-20 million members, according to species. In the great majority of instances, the colony members are all female. More than 905 of communications are chemical. Social insects distinguish their own nestmates from other colonies by using receptors on their antennae.
Particularly interesting is the authors' focus on leafcutter ants, who about 50-60 million years before man evolved from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural life.
Multiply inseminated queens (the rule) create markedly lower disease susceptibility for a colony. In-breeding is kept down by the fact that different colonies breed at about the same time. After the mating flight, all males die. Mortality is also very high for the young queens - well over 98%. The new queen digs the beginnings of a nest, and cultivates the fungus garden she started herself at first with a piece of her "home" garden. At first she consumes 90% of the eggs she lays. Similarly, the first hatching larvae are also fed eggs. If the fungus started by the queen fails, the colony is doomed. After a week or so the young workers open the nest entrance, and start foraging.
The ultimate colony size may reach 5-8 million after 5 years. Younger workers tend to perform tasks within the nest. Vibratory sounds communicate to others nearby the quality of leaves being worked on.
A queen lives over ten years; each year, thousands of females grow up to potential queens, and several thousand short-lived males develop from unfertilized eggs. Overall, the queen lays about 20 eggs/minute (28,800/day, 10.5 million/year). Fungus-growing ants fertilize the fungal garden with their own feces. Waste management is mainly performed by older workers destined to die soon anyway; those exposed to waste material die at a higher rate.
A typical 6-year-old nest examined by experts contained 1,920 chambers, with 238 occupied by fungus gardens. The loose soil brought out weighted about 40 tons.
The authors then go on to also cover nest migration in the more nomadic species and the instance when disease among their fungus gardens has become a problem.
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