Animal behaviour: feeding the superorganism.
Insect societies are often described as superorganisms, and there are many functional parallels between organisms and superorganisms. Elegant work using ants shows that nutrient regulation, which occurs in many non-social animals, can also occur at the colony-level.
Behmer
Spencer T
ST
Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2475, USA. s-behmer@tamu.edu
D000824:Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D008954:Models, Biological; D012919:Social Behavior