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A beehive or an ant colony is actually one organism, from the point of view of evolution. The individual insects are genetically identical within a collective.
by asdflkj 16y ago
A beehive or an ant colony is actually one organism, from the point of view of evolution. The individual insects are genetically identical within a collective.
- avar 16y agoNo it isn't, you should read The Selfish Gene by Dawkins. There's a chapter explaining that this is a myth with little grounds in reality. There's a lot of backstabbing and competition that goes on within individual hives of the social insects.
- asdflkj 16y agoI've read it, a long time ago. IIRC, there is competition among the very few breeders, but the non-breeding workers are in fact identical. The social cohesion parent was talking about happens among the workers.