Social Behavior of Insects

By Anonymous -
Insect social behavior among their own individual species consists of different actions that fall into one of three categories:

  • Solitary
  • Subsocial
  • Eusocial




To dig deep into Eusocial behavior, we will take a closer look at termites and how their hierarchy works. While every species of termite behave in ways unique to them, there are several commonalities in the way that they work together to ensure the success of the colony. The Reproducer of the colony(the queen) lays several thousand eggs within her lifetime and these eggs receive special care. Workers in the colony are blind, unable to produce offspring, and fill a very specific role in the colony. Workers take the queen's eggs and stack them together in large amounts, sometimes up to 500 eggs or more! While the eggs are sitting through their approximate 15 day hatch time, the workers are consistently moving them, turning them, and cleaning them. Workers also carry the responsibility of feeding the soldiers within the colony. A soldier's main purpose is to defend the colony from other predators. Some soldiers have large mandibles capable of crushing intruders, but even still they are not able to feed themselves and must be fed by the workers. Just this one type of insect has a very complex hierarchy of work and care divided up between all members of the colony. Eusociality has definitely showed its importance in the survival of such complex insect species. While being a eusocial insect definitely has its benefits such as a higher survival rate, and a better means of protection against predators, it also has a few downsides. With a larger colony comes a larger responsibility for the colony members to provide nutrition for the rising numbers. However, the biggest difference we can see between eusocial insects and solitary insects is that without the colony, eusocial insects would die, whereas a solitary insect need only to look after itself.    Eusocial Insects
Solitary insects are everywhere we look. Solidarity can come with many benefits to the individual insect. Solitary insects do not have to count on the role of other insects being fulfilled to survive. Solitary insects also do not have to always come back to a colony and this enables them to seek new resources in a wider area. Even so, there is definitely a downside to solidarity. Being a solitary insect means that when times get tough there is no power in numbers for the insect to lean on. The insect is more easily parasitized and eaten by predators, and the insect has to search for a mate, risking its life in the process (some mates requiring your life for sustenance)

.

All in all, being a solitary insect definitely has some pros and definitely has some cons, but they seem to be successful no matter what downsides there may be.




Pros to humans/society
Cons to humans/society
Pollination/seed dispersal of plants
Some are herbivores of plants
Food production (honey)
Invasive species
Production of materials (wax)
Some aggressively sting
Decomposition
Can cause damage to houses or other wooden structures
Controls population of other insects including pests




Subsocial behavior in insects is known to be the most primitive of behavior in social activity between insect parents and their young. Subsociality is defined by the post ovipositional behavior that insect parents use to protect and raise their offspring. They provide several forms of caring actions that include grooming, passive egg guarding, nesting behaviors, and feeding and protecting strategies. The level of complexity of parental care can be divided up into three main groups: parents that protect resources that are vital to their offspring, parents that facilitate offspring feeding, and parents that will physically protect their young from any form of danger. All these combined help ensure that the insect young will be someday become adults and repeat the same parental care to their young. Whether an insect is social, subsocial, or solitary, each behavior exists so as to ensure the life, growth, and reproduction of these tiny creatures.

Created by: Jacob Grimm, Cari Marota, and Hannah Warner






   




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