New A team of researchers including scientists from the
University of Florida has shown insect colonies follow some of
the same biological "rules" as individuals, a finding that
suggests insect societies operate like a single "superorganism"
in terms of their physiology and life cycle. For more than a
century, biologists have marveled at the highly cooperative
nature of ants, bees and other social insects that work together
to determine the survival and growth of a colony. The social
interactions are much like cells working together in a single
body, hence the term "superorganism" — an organism comprised of
many organisms, according to James Gillooly, Ph.D., an assistant
professor in the department of biology at UF's College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences. Now, researchers from UF, the
University of Oklahoma and the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine have taken the same mathematical models that predict
lifespan, growth and reproduction in individual organisms and
used them to predict these features in whole co