Deconstructing Superorganisms and Societies to Address Big Questions in Biology

Kennedy, Patrick; Baron, Gemma; Qiu, Bitao; Freitak, Dalial; Helanterä, Heikki; Hunt, Edmund R.; Manfredini, Fabio; O’Shea-Wheller, Thomas A.; Patalano, Solenn; Pull, Christopher D.; Sasaki, Takao; Taylor, Daisy; Wyatt, Christopher D R; Sumner, Seirian

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2017.08.004

Cited by 46 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 125 publications

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“…Or did plastic traits evolved after invasion only in those populations that became invasive? This was one of three fundamental issues on the nature of phenotypic plasticity identified by Kennedy et al (2017). Addressing this question will require comparing in a rigorous way (e.g., common garden experiments) the extent of plasticity (i.e., amplitude of the range of responses) for the trait of interest in populations of conspecifics from the native and invasive ranges.…”

Section: Knowledge Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eusocial insects show some of the most striking known examples of phenotypic plasticity known in the animal world, on both the individual and colony levels (Kennedy et al, 2017). These animals are defined by the presence of distinct castes within colonies-individuals that are specialized for specific types of activity, the most prominent being the division of labor between reproductive "royal" castes (e.g., queens) and non-reproductive castes (e.g., workers, Wilson, 1971).…”

Section: Introduction Phenotypic Plasticity In Social Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Potential Role for Phenotypic Plasticity in Invasions and Declines of Social Insects

2019

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Section: Knowledge Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction Phenotypic Plasticity In Social Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Potential Role for Phenotypic Plasticity in Invasions and Declines of Social Insects

2019

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“…This reproductive cooperation, however, also requires coordination. Just like individual cells within a multicellular organism must detect the organism's state to coordinate developmental transitions, so too must the individual workers detect their colony's state (Hölldobler & Wilson, ; Kennedy et al ., ). Although we know that honey bee workers use chemical profiles at the individual‐level to detect individual‐level developmental transitions (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Colony‐level chemical profiles do not provide reliable information about colony size in the honey bee

Smith

Kingwell

Böröczky

et al. 2020

Ecological Entomology

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1. Chemical communication facilitates colony function across social insects, providing workers with information about individual and colony state. Although workers use chemical cues to detect developmental transitions in individuals, it is unknown whether workers can also use colony-level chemical profiles to detect the developmental state of their colony. Indeed, it is largely unknown how colony-level chemical profiles change as colonies grow and develop.2. Reproductive onset is a major developmental transition and, in the honey bee, Apis mellifera, colonies must surpass a threshold colony size before workers will invest in reproduction. Given the ubiquity of chemical communication, the present study investigated whether colony-level chemical profiles change with colony size.3. Chemical compounds deposited by workers of three colony sizes (5000, 10 000, 15 000 workers) collected over a 4-day time-series (0, 12, 24, 48, 72, and 96 h), as well as worker cuticular lipids, were sampled. 4. In total, 26 compounds deposited on nest surfaces and 20 compounds in worker cuticular lipids were identified; it took up to 24 h for sampled nest surfaces to reach saturation in the number and amount of deposited compounds. 5. Among these compounds, no qualitative or quantitative indicators of colony size were found, suggesting that deposited chemical compounds are not semiochemicals in this context. Volatile pheromones have also been shown previously to not play a role in signaling colony size. Therefore, honey bee workers are unlikely to use deposited chemical cues to detect colony size, and must rely instead on other modalities, such as physical cues of worker density.

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“…Here, I focus specifically on the general concept of phenotypic plasticity as a powerful, complementary framework for thinking about real-world deployment of minimal robot swarms. In fact, social insects are prime exhibitors of phenotypic plasticity (Kennedy et al, 2017), but it is widespread and of fundamental importance in the rest of the natural world. In brief, I argue the following main points:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenotypic Plasticity Provides a Bioinspiration Framework for Minimal Field Swarm Robotics

Hunt

2020

Front. Robot. AI

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The real world is highly variable and unpredictable, and so fine-tuned robot controllers that successfully result in group-level "emergence" of swarm capabilities indoors may quickly become inadequate outside. One response to unpredictability could be greater robot complexity and cost, but this seems counter to the "swarm philosophy" of deploying (very) large numbers of simple agents. Instead, here I argue that bioinspiration in swarm robotics has considerable untapped potential in relation to the phenomenon of phenotypic plasticity: when a genotype can produce a range of distinctive changes in organismal behavior, physiology and morphology in response to different environments. This commonly arises following a natural history of variable conditions; implying the need for more diverse and hazardous simulated environments in offline, pre-deployment optimization of swarms. This will generate-indicate the need for-plasticity. Biological plasticity is sometimes irreversible; yet this characteristic remains relevant in the context of minimal swarms, where robots may become mass-producible. Plasticity can be introduced through the greater use of adaptive threshold-based behaviors; more fundamentally, it can link to emerging technologies such as smart materials, which can adapt form and function to environmental conditions. Moreover, in social animals, individual heterogeneity is increasingly recognized as functional for the group. Phenotypic plasticity can provide meaningful diversity "for free" based on early, local sensory experience, contributing toward better collective decision-making and resistance against adversarial agents, for example. Nature has already solved the challenge of resilient self-organisation in the physical realm through phenotypic plasticity: swarm engineers can follow this lead.

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Deconstructing Superorganisms and Societies to Address Big Questions in Biology

Cited by 46 publications

References 125 publications

A Potential Role for Phenotypic Plasticity in Invasions and Declines of Social Insects

A Potential Role for Phenotypic Plasticity in Invasions and Declines of Social Insects

Colony‐level chemical profiles do not provide reliable information about colony size in the honey bee

Phenotypic Plasticity Provides a Bioinspiration Framework for Minimal Field Swarm Robotics

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