SELF-ORGANIZATION AND THE EVOLUTION OF DIVISION-OF-LABOR

Division of labor is one of the most fascinating phenomena found in so cial insects and is probably responsible for their tremendous ecologic al success. We show how major features of this division of labor may r epresent self-organized properties of a complex system where individua ls share an information data base (a stimulus environment), make indep endent decisions about how to respond to the current condition of that data base (stimulus environment), and alter the data base by their ac tions. We argue that division of labor can emerge from such systems ev en without a history of natural selection, that in fact such ordered b ehavior is an inescapable property of group living. We then show how n atural selection can operate on self-organized complex systems(social organization) and result in adaptation of division of labor. (C) Inra/ DIB/AGIB/Elsevier, Paris.