Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution

Workers of the Argentine ant, Iridomyrmex humilis,start to explore a chemically unmarked territory randomly. As the exploratory front advances, other explorers are recruited and a trail extends from it to the nest. Whereas recruitment trails are generally constructed between two points, these exploratory trails have no fixed destination, and strongly resemble the foraging patterns of army ants. A minimal model shows how the exploratory pattern may be generated by the individual workers' simple trail-laying and -following behavior, illustrating how complex collective structures in insect colonies may be based on self-organization.

http://www.intelligentappliances.org/files/2012presentations/The%20self-organizing%20exploratory%20pattern%20of%20the%20argentine%20ant.pdf

The self-organizing exploratory pattern of the argentine ant

Acknowledgments ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Coming Together 14 Chapter 3: Information Transfer 44 Chapter 4: Making Decisions 77 Chapter 5: Moving Together 101 Chapter 6: Synchronization 130 Chapter 7: Structures 151 Chapter 8: Regulation 173 Chapter 9: Complicated Interactions 198 Chapter 10: The Evolution of Co-operation 223 Chapter 11: Conclusions 253 References 259 Index 293

Collective Animal Behavior

The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business

Human societies are examined as distinct and coherent groups. This trait is most parsimoniously considered a deeply rooted part of our ancestry rather than a recent cultural invention. Our species is the only vertebrate with society memberships of significantly more than 200. We accomplish this by using society-specific labels to identify members, in what I call an anonymous society. I propose that the human brain has evolved to permit not only the close relationships described by the social brain hypothesis, but also, at little mental cost, the anonymous societies within which such alliances are built. The human compulsion to discover or invent labels to "mark" group memberships may originally have been expressed in hominins as vocally learned greetings only slightly different in function from chimpanzee pant hoots (now known to be society-specific). The weight of evidence suggests that at some point, conceivably early in the hominin line, the distinct groups composed of several bands that were typical of our ancestors came to be distinguished by their members on the basis of multiple labels that were socially acquired in this way, the earliest of which would leave no trace in the archaeological record. Often overlooked as research subjects, these sizable fission-fusion communities, in recent egalitarian hunter-gatherers sometimes 2,000 strong, should consistently be accorded the status of societies, in the same sense that this word is used to describe tribes, chiefdoms, and other cultures arising later in our history. The capacity of hunter-gatherer societies to grow sufficiently populous that not all members necessarily recognize one another would make the transition to larger agricultural societies straightforward. Humans differ from chimpanzees in that societal labels are essential to the maintenance of societies and the processes giving birth to new ones. I propose that anonymous societies of all kinds can expand only so far as their labels can remain sufficiently stable.

Human Identity and the Evolution of Societies

All societies are characterized by the capacity of their members to distinguish one another from outsiders. Ants are among the species that form ‘‘anonymous societies’’: members are not required to tell each other apart as individuals for the group to remain unified. Rather, each society depends on shared cues recognized by all its members. These cues permit societies to reach populations in the low millions in certain ant and termite species, and to grow indefinitely populous, expansive, and possibly long lasting in a few other ant species, which are described as having supercolonies. Anonymous societies are contrasted with ‘‘individual recognition societies’’ such as those of most vertebrates, which are limited to a few individuals by the necessity that the members individually recognize each other. The shared recognition cues of ants provide clear criteria for defining colonies and are what enables a supercolony to remain a single society no matter how large it becomes. I examine the often conflicting ideas about the best studied ant with supercolonies, the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile). Its invasive supercolonies, containing in some cases billions of workers and queens spread over hundreds of square kilometers, can be most parsimoniously understood as single colonies that have had an opportunity to expand across regions of suitable habitat because of a lack of well-matched competitors. This capacity for unrestricted growth is the defining characteristic of supercolonies. There is no evidence that the local patchiness of nests and patterns of worker and food traffic within these wide-ranging populations are so invariant that supercolonies do not exist but instead are collections of numerous independent nest clusters that should be called ‘‘colonies.’’ Nor is there evidence for the hypothesis that invasive supercolonies have been able to grow large and successful overseas only as a result of evolving through genetic drift or selection to become fundamentally different from the smaller colonies typical of the species’ region of origin around northern Argentina. The most unique feature of the Argentine ant, however, is not that its colonies are anonymous or that they can grow indefinitely large—though the last trait is found only in a few ant species and humans. Rather, it is that Argentine ant colonies do not interbreed. Indeed, the only fighting among Argentine ants occurs along colony borders, which even reproductives seldom, if ever, cross and survive. For this reason, each Argentine ant supercolony acts as virtually a sibling species. Key words: Argentine ant, polydomy, recognition system, reproductive isolation, society, speciation, supercolony, unicolonial. [Behav Ecol]

/pdf/supercolonies-of-billions-in-an-invasive-ant-what-is-a-262jm1fuoi.pdf

Supercolonies of billions in an invasive ant: What is a society?

With the advent of increasingly sophisticated techniques for access, tropical forest canopy research has burgeoned in the last few years. Although an enormous amount of basic descriptive work remains to be done, canopy research is now entering a more advanced and ecological phase.

/pdf/the-ecology-of-tropical-rain-forest-canopies-2jt7qzmj75.pdf

The ecology of tropical rain forest canopies

Studies on the Population Biology of the Tropical Butterfly Mechanitis isthmia in Costa Rica

Size comparisons are made between the beaked sea snake, Erhydrina schistosa, and its usual prey, an ariid catfish, Tachysurus maculatus. Of 108 catfish found in as many snake stomachs, most were partially digested. Estimates of catfish length, maximum diameter, and weight were made using linear regression relationships between these measures and index measures determined on entire specimens. Maximum prey diameters were one to two times the neck diameters of the snakes. Prey selection is implicated along both the upper and lower limits of prey size. Large snakes take a disproportionately large number of relatively small fish. This may be a function of prey availability alone. OPTIMAL FORAGJNG THEORIES have encouraged ecologists to look at feeding behavior and habits much more rigorously than in the past. To test theories of selective feeding it is necessary to define and gather data on factors such as foraging time, processing time, net energy gain, feeding frequency, etc. (see Schoener 1971, for a review of optimal foraging theory). Among terrestrial vertebrates snakes are the only major group which specializes in swallowing whole relatively large prey. The prey size of snakes relates directly to prey-handling factors as well as energy considerations. There are numerous reports in the literature on the taxonomic identity of the food of marine snakes (Klawe 1964, McCosker 1975, Voris 1972). The bulk of the data indicates that most species are specialists on some variety of fish. A study of the food and feeding behavior of the beaked sea snake, Enhydrina schistosa, in Malaysia (Voris et al. 1978) revealed behavioral specializations for ingesting spiny catfish (Ariidae). In this paper the relationship between the size and body proportions of E. schistosa relative to its catfish prey is explored. MATERIALS AND METHODS Beaked sea snakes (Enhydrina schistosa) were collected at Muar, Malaysia (2?3'20"N, 102034'20"E). Details of habitat and collection techniques are available elsewhere (Jeffries and Voris 1979). The measurements of snout-vent (s-v) length, girth at the neck, and girth at 3/4 the s-v length were made on snakes relaxed with sodium pentobarbital. The latter two girth measurements represent the minimum and maximum girths respectively for E. schistosa. The neck of E. schistosa is round, and thus girth measurements were converted to diameters by dividing each circumference by -r. All specimens were weighed several months after they had been preserved in formalin and stored in 70 percent ethanol. The stomach contents were removed from the relaxed snakes and preserved in 10 percent formalin. Several months later the fish were transferred to 70 percent ethanol. At Muar the most frequent prey of the beaked sea snakes was the ariid catfish, Tachysurus maculatus (Voris et al. 1978), and this paper deals mainly with this species. Measurements and weights were made on preserved catfish. Body length was measured from the most anterior part of the head to the base of the tail where the fin rays emerged from the body. The maximum diameter, excluding the extended dorsal or pectoral spines, was across the body at the base of the pectoral fins and will be hereafter referred to as the diameter. Tail height was measured as the depth of the caudal peduncle, excluding the fin rays, at the base of the tail. The dorsal fin to tail length was the distance from the posterior junction of the dorsal fin and the body to the base of the tail medio-laterally, where there was a small notch at the base of the tail. E. schistosa swallow catfish head first (Voris et al. 1978), and thus the posterior end of the fish is the last to undergo digestion. Fish lacking some part of the forebody comprised 75 percent of the stomach contents. Of the 108 catfish removed from stomachs, the length, diameter, and weight were measured directly for 27, 16, and 11 specimens respectively. For the remaining partly digested fish, tail height and dorsal fin to tail length measurements were used to estimate the original body dimensions and weight. This was done after first analyzing a series of 50 complete specimens to determine the relationship between the two index measurements (tail height and dorsal fin to tail length) and the length, diameter, and weight of the catfish. A linear relationship exists between tail height and body length, thus the linear regression was used BIOTROPICA 13(1): 15-19 1981 15 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.27 on Mon, 05 Sep 2016 06:03:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms TABLE 1. Data on relationships between catfish index measurements (dorsal fin-tail length and tail height in centimeters) and catfish parameters used in comparisons with snakes. Body Maximum Body length diameter weight (log) x n y r n y r n y r Fin-tail 50 1.87x 0.11 1.00 42 0.38x + 0.04 0.99 35 3.29x 1.27 0.99 length Tail height 50 10.03x + 0.91 .99 41 1.97x + 0.27 0.98 34 2.86x + 1.25 0.98

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2387866.pdf

Mark W. Moffett

Papers

Human Identity and the Evolution of Societies

Supercolonies of billions in an invasive ant: What is a society?

The ecology of tropical rain forest canopies

Studies on the Population Biology of the Tropical Butterfly Mechanitis isthmia in Costa Rica

Size and Proportion Relationship Between the Beaked Sea Snake and Its Prey