title: Cooperative foraging, productivity, and the central limit theorem.
abstract: The central limit theorem is applied to group foraging to show an automatic and universal benefit to group living. This may explain the paradoxical inverse correlation between group size and per capita brood production in primitively eusocial insects and why only one of the five major lineages of social insects contains species that revert to solitary habit.
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA.
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Wenzel
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pickering