SELF-ORGANIZATION IN SOCIAL INSECTS

Self-organization was introduced originally in the context of physics and chemistry to describe how microscopic processes give rise to macro scopic structures in out-of-equilibrium systems. Recent research that extends this concept to ethology suggests that it provides a concise d escription of a wide range of collective phenomena in animals, especia lly in social insects. This description does not rely on individual co mplexity to account for complex spatiotemporal features that emerge at the colony level, but rather assumes that interactions among simple i ndividuals can produce highly structured collective behaviours.