The Organization of Work in Social Insect Colonies

The Organization of Work in Social Insect Colonies

Gordon, Deborah M.
Nature 380, no. 6570 (1996): 121-124
https://doi.org/10.1038/380121a0

“Throughout the 1970s and mid 1980s, research [in insect biology] emphasized the internal factors within an individual that determine its task. The idea of a social insect colony as a factory with assembly-line workers, each performing a single task over and over, had widespread appeal. Such a view was consistent with contemporary thinking about analogous systems; examples were the ‘one gene, one protein’ view of gene action, and the idea that each neuron performs a single function. In social insects, a worker of a given behavioural ‘caste’ was thought to be intrinsically suited to a particular task, and to perform this task more or less exclusively. ”

— Deborah M. Gordon