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103-566: The Cloud Appreciation Society is a society founded by Gavin Pretor-Pinney from the United Kingdom in January 2005. The society aims to foster understanding and appreciation of clouds , and has over 60,000 members from 120 countries, as of September 2023. Yahoo! named the society's website as "the most weird and wonderful find on the internet for 2005". The group and its founder were
206-618: A chief is merely a person of influence, and leadership is based on personal qualities. The family forms the main social unit , with most members being related by birth or marriage. The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins described hunter-gatherers as the " original affluent society " due to their extended leisure time: Sahlins estimated that adults in hunter gatherer societies work three to five hours per day. This perspective has been challenged by other researchers, who have pointed out high mortality rates and perennial warfare in hunter-gatherer societies. Proponents of Sahlins' view argue that
309-649: A classification comes from sociologist Gerhard Lenski who lists: (1) hunting and gathering; (2) horticultural; (3) agricultural; and (4) industrial; as well as specialized societies (e.g., fishing or herding). Some cultures have developed over time toward more complex forms of organization and control. This cultural evolution has a profound effect on patterns of community. Hunter-gatherer tribes have, at times, settled around seasonal food stocks to become agrarian villages. Villages have grown to become towns and cities. Cities have turned into city-states and nation-states . However, these processes are not unidirectional. In
412-485: A colony of adults , and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society, sometimes called castes. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms . Eusociality has evolved among
515-407: A colony, there are both pleated fan-shaped "nest" fronds that collect and hold water, and gutter-shaped "strap" fronds that channel water: no solitary Platycerium species has both types. At the bottom of a colony, there are "nest" fronds that clasp the trunk of the tree supporting the fern, and drooping photosynthetic fronds. These are argued to be adapted to support the colony structurally, i.e. that
618-425: A decreased need for agricultural labor leads to urbanization . Industrial societies are often capitalist , and have high degrees of inequality along with high social mobility , as businesspeople use the market to amass large amounts of wealth. Working conditions in factories are generally restrictive and harsh. Workers, who have common interests, may organize into labor unions to advance those interests. On
721-453: A diverse range of subgroups, and the makeup of these ethnic groups can change over time at both the collective and individual level. Ethnic groupings can play a powerful role in the social identity and solidarity of ethnopolitical units. Ethnic identity has been closely tied to the rise of the nation state as the predominant form of political organization in the 19th and 20th centuries. Governments create laws and policies that affect
824-426: A division of labor where women take on reproductive labor and other domestic roles. Gender roles have varied historically, and challenges to predominant gender norms have recurred in many societies. All human societies organize, recognize and classify types of social relationships based on relations between parents, children and other descendants ( consanguinity ), and relations through marriage ( affinity ). There
927-651: A given society are known as societal norms . So far as it is collaborative , a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would otherwise be difficult on an individual basis. Societies vary based on level of technology and type of economic activity. Larger societies with larger food surpluses often exhibit stratification or dominance patterns. Societies can have many different forms of government, various ways of understanding kinship, and different gender roles. Human behavior varies immensely between different societies; humans shape society, but society in turn shapes human beings. The term "society" often refers to
1030-419: A hive of half-sisters that share only 25% of their genes. The association between haplodiploidy and eusociality is below statistical significance. Haplodiploidy is thus neither necessary nor sufficient for eusociality to emerge. Relatedness does still play a part, as monogamy (queens mating singly) is the ancestral state for all eusocial species so far investigated. If kin selection is an important force driving
1133-483: A large area. Lenski differentiates between horticultural and agrarian societies by the use of the plow . Larger food supplies due to improved technology mean agrarian communities are larger than horticultural communities. A greater food surplus results in towns that become centers of trade. Economic trade in turn leads to increased specialization, including a ruling class, as well as educators, craftspeople, merchants, and religious figures, who do not directly participate in
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#17330863052591236-487: A large group of people in an ordered community, in a country or several similar countries, or the 'state of being with other people', e.g. "they lived in medieval society." The term dates back to at least 1513 and comes from the 12th-century French societe (modern French société ) meaning 'company'. Societe was in turn derived from the Latin word societas ('fellowship,' 'alliance', 'association'), which in turn
1339-648: A male is haploid, his daughters share 100% of his genes and 50% of their mother's. Therefore, they share 75% of their genes with each other. This mechanism of sex determination gives rise to what W. D. Hamilton first termed "supersisters", more closely related to their sisters than they would be to their own offspring. Even though workers often do not reproduce, they can pass on more of their genes by helping to raise their sisters than by having their own offspring (each of which would only have 50% of their genes). This unusual situation, where females may have greater fitness when they help rear sisters rather than producing offspring,
1442-420: A more complex division of labor. Specialized roles in horticultural societies include craftspeople, shamans (religious leaders), and traders. This role specialization allows horticultural societies to create a variety of artifacts. Scarce, defensible resources can lead to wealth inequalities in horticultural political systems. Agrarian societies use agricultural technological advances to cultivate crops over
1545-466: A possible resolution to the paradox might lie in the close family relationship, which W.D. Hamilton quantified a century later with his 1964 inclusive fitness theory. After the gene-centered view of evolution was developed in the mid-1970s, non-reproductive individuals were seen as an extended phenotype of the genes, which are the primary beneficiaries of natural selection. According to inclusive fitness theory, organisms can gain fitness by increasing
1648-401: A pre-industrial society, food production, which is carried out through the use of human and animal labor , is the main economic activity. These societies can be subdivided according to their level of technology and their method of producing food. These subdivisions are hunting and gathering, pastoral, horticultural, and agrarian. The main form of food production in hunter-gatherer societies is
1751-535: A primitively eusocial division of labor. The term "eusocial" was introduced in 1966 by Suzanne Batra , who used it to describe nesting behavior in Halictid bees, on a scale of subsocial/solitary, colonial/communal, semisocial, and eusocial, where a colony is started by a single individual. Batra observed the cooperative behavior of the bees, males and females alike, as they took responsibility for at least one duty (i.e., burrowing, cell construction, oviposition ) within
1854-526: A rate comparable to other primates (although humans kill adults at a relatively high rate and have a relatively low rate of infanticide ). Another school of thought suggests that war is a relatively recent phenomenon and appeared due to changing social conditions. While not settled, the current evidence suggests warlike behavior only became common about 10,000 years ago, and in many regions even more recently. Phylogenetic analysis predicts 2% of human deaths to be caused by homicide, which approximately matches
1957-602: A shared need for defense. Sedentary life, in Khaldun's view, was marked by secularization, decreased social cohesion, and increased interest in luxury. Rizal was a Filipino nationalist living toward the end of the Spanish Colonial Period who theorized about colonial societies. Rizal argued that indolence , which the Spanish used to justify their colonial occupation, was instead caused by the colonial occupation. Rizal compared
2060-403: A social category that identify together as a group based on shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. These shared attributes can be a common set of traditions, ancestry , language , history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area. There is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes an ethnic group, and humans have evolved
2163-416: A species. Multilevel selection has been heavily criticized for its conflict with the kin selection theory. A reversal to solitarity is an evolutionary phenomenon in which descendants of a eusocial group evolve solitary behavior once again. Bees have been model organisms for the study of reversal to solitarity, because of the diversity of their social systems. Each of the four origins of eusociality in bees
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#17330863052592266-482: A sterile caste are sometimes called hypersocial. While only a moderate percentage of species in bees (families Apidae and Halictidae ) and wasps ( Crabronidae and Vespidae ) are eusocial, nearly all species of ants ( Formicidae ) are eusocial. Some major lineages of wasps are mostly or entirely eusocial, including the subfamilies Polistinae and Vespinae . The corbiculate bees (subfamily Apinae of family Apidae ) contain four tribes of varying degrees of sociality:
2369-529: Is 50%. Therefore, helping behavior is only advantageous if it is biased to helping sisters, which would drive the population to a 1:3 sex ratio of males to females. At this ratio, males, as the rarer sex, increase in reproductive value, reducing the benefit of female-biased investment. Further, not all eusocial species are haplodiploid: termites, some snapping shrimps, and mole rats are not. Conversely, many non-eusocial bees are haplodiploid, and among eusocial species many queens mate with multiple males, resulting in
2472-563: Is also a third type of familial relationship applied to godparents or adoptive children ( fictive ). These culturally defined relationships are referred to as kinship. In many societies, it is one of the most important social organizing principles and plays a role in transmitting status and inheritance . All societies have rules of incest taboo , according to which marriage between certain kinds of kin relations are prohibited; and some societies also have rules of preferential marriage with certain other kin relations. Human ethnic groups are
2575-427: Is an aggregation of relatives (because the shrimp do not have to disperse to find food), and much competition for those nesting sites. Being the target of attack promotes a good defense system (soldier caste); soldiers promote the fitness of the whole nest by ensuring safety and reproduction of the queen. Eusociality offers a competitive advantage in shrimp populations. Eusocial species are more abundant, occupy more of
2678-408: Is characterized by having individuals fixed into one behavioral group, usually before reproductive maturity. This prevents them from transitioning between behavioral groups, and creates a society with individuals truly dependent on each other for survival and reproductive success. For many insects, this irreversibility has changed the anatomy of the worker caste, which is sterile and provides support for
2781-557: Is mostly focused on processing raw materials into finished products. Present-day societies vary in their degree of industrialization, with some using mostly newer energy sources (e.g. coal, oil , and nuclear energy ), and others continuing to rely on human and animal power. Industrialization is associated with population booms and the growth of cities. Increased productivity, as well as the stability caused by improved transportation, leads to decreased mortality and resulting population growth. Centralized production of goods in factories and
2884-542: Is not divided between castes. Though controversial, it has been suggested that male homosexuality and female menopause could have evolved through kin selection . This would mean that humans sometimes exhibit a type of alloparental behavior known as " helpers at the nest ", with juveniles and sexually mature adolescents helping their parents raise subsequent broods, as in some birds, some non-eusocial bees , and meerkats . These species are not eusocial: they do not have castes, and helpers reproduce on their own if given
2987-491: Is often invoked to explain the multiple independent evolutions of eusociality (at least nine separate times) within the Hymenoptera. Against the supposed benefits of haplodiploidy for eusociality, Robert Trivers notes that while females share 75% of genes with their sisters in haplodiploid populations, they only share 25% of their genes with their brothers. Accordingly, the average relatedness of an individual to their sibling
3090-687: Is often reliably predicted by ecological conditions, and switches in behavioral type have been experimentally induced by translocating offspring of solitary or social populations to warm and cool climates. In H. rubicundus , females produce a single brood in cooler regions and two or more broods in warmer regions, so the former populations are solitary while the latter are social. In another species of sweat bees, L. calceatum , social phenotype has been predicted by altitude and micro-habitat composition, with social nests found in warmer, sunnier sites, and solitary nests found in adjacent, cooler, shaded locations. Facultatively social bee species, however, which comprise
3193-575: Is protected by many unfertilized females, which serve as workers excavating tunnels in trees. This species has cooperative brood care, in which individuals care for juveniles that are not their own. Some gall-inducing insects , including the gall -forming aphid , Pemphigus spyrothecae (order Hemiptera ), and thrips such as Kladothrips (order Thysanoptera ), are described as eusocial. These species have very high relatedness among individuals due to their asexual reproduction (sterile soldier castes being clones produced by parthenogenesis ), but
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3296-418: Is seen as a characteristic that differentiates humans from other animals. Trade has even been cited as a practice that gave Homo sapiens a major advantage over other hominids; evidence suggests early H. sapiens made use of long-distance trade routes to exchange goods and ideas, leading to cultural explosions and providing additional food sources when hunting was sparse. Such trade networks did not exist for
3399-510: Is similar to hunter-gatherers (about 50 individuals), but unlike hunter gatherers, pastoral societies usually consist of multiple communities—the average pastoral society contains thousands of people. This is because pastoral groups tend to live in open areas where movement is easy, which enables political integration. Pastoral societies tend to create a food surplus, and have specialized labor and high levels of inequality. Fruits and vegetables grown in garden plots, that have been cleared from
3502-491: The Damaraland mole-rat ( Fukomys damarensis ), both of which are highly inbred . Usually living in harsh or limiting environments, these mole-rats aid in raising siblings and relatives born to a single reproductive queen. However, this classification is controversial owing to disputed definitions of 'eusociality'. To avoid inbreeding , mole rats sometimes outbreed and establish new colonies when resources are sufficient. Most of
3605-400: The United Kingdom is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This cloud –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Society A society ( / s ə ˈ s aɪ ə t i / ) is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory , typically subject to
3708-456: The common good or in the name of the public interest , but as property they own. Caste systems , as historically found in South Asia, are associated with agrarian societies, where lifelong agricultural routines depend upon a rigid sense of duty and discipline. The scholar Donald Brown suggests that an emphasis in the modern West on personal liberties and freedoms was in large part a reaction to
3811-515: The gene-centered view of evolution , eusociality was seen as paradoxical: if adaptive evolution unfolds by differential reproduction of individual organisms, the evolution of individuals incapable of passing on their genes presents a challenge. In On the Origin of Species , Darwin referred to the existence of sterile castes as the "one special difficulty, which at first appeared to me insuperable, and actually fatal to my theory". Darwin anticipated that
3914-543: The insects , crustaceans , trematoda and mammals . It is most widespread in the Hymenoptera ( ants , bees , and wasps ) and in Blattodea ( termites ). A colony has caste differences: queens and reproductive males take the roles of the sole reproducers, while soldiers and workers work together to create and maintain a living situation favorable for the brood. Queens produce multiple queen pheromones to create and maintain
4017-424: The means of production . Symbolic interactionism is a microsociological theory that focuses on individuals and how the individual relates to society. Symbolic interactionists study humans' use of shared language to create common symbols and meanings, and use this frame of reference to understand how individuals interact to create symbolic worlds, and in turn, how these worlds shape individual behaviors . In
4120-576: The Neotropical social wasp Synoeca surinama , caste ranks are determined by social displays in the developing brood. These castes are sometimes further specialized in their behavior based on age, as in Scaptotrigona postica workers. Between approximately 0–40 days old, the workers perform tasks within the nest such as provisioning cell broods, colony cleaning, and nectar reception and dehydration. Once older than 40 days, S. postica workers move outside
4223-495: The United States, the richest tenth of humans hold more than seven-tenths of those regions' total wealth. The willingness of humans to kill other members of their species en masse through organized conflict (i.e. war) has long been the subject of debate. One school of thought is that war evolved as a means to eliminate competitors, and that violence is an innate human characteristic. Humans commit violence against other humans at
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4326-437: The ability to change affiliation with social groups relatively easily, including leaving groups with previously strong alliances, if doing so is seen as providing personal advantages. Ethnicity is separate from the concept of race , which is based on physical characteristics, although both are socially constructed . Assigning ethnicity to a certain population is complicated, as even within common ethnic designations there can be
4429-682: The access to electronic information resources increased at the beginning of the 21st century, special attention was extended from the information society to the knowledge society. A knowledge society generates, shares, and makes available to all members of the society knowledge that may be used to improve the human condition . A knowledge society differs from an information society in that it transforms information into resources that allow society to take effective action, rather than only creating and disseminating raw data . Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms, which can both be informal understandings that govern
4532-453: The behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws, are powerful drivers of human behavior. Social roles are norms, duties , and patterns of behavior that relate to an individual's social status. In functionalist thought, individuals form the structure of society by occupying social roles. According to symbolic interactionism, individuals use symbols to navigate and communicate roles. Erving Goffman used
4635-523: The colony, it is protected by a specialized caste of sterile soldier trematodes. Soldiers are smaller, more mobile, and develop along a different pathway than sexually mature reproductives. One difference is that a soldier's mouthparts (pharynx) is five times as big as those of the reproductives. They make up nearly a quarter of the volume of the soldier. These soldiers do not have a germinal mass, never metamorphose to be reproductive, and are, therefore, obligately sterile. Soldiers are readily distinguished from
4738-470: The colony. In 1969, Charles D. Michener further expanded Batra's classification with his comparative study of social behavior in bees. He observed multiple species of bees ( Apoidea ) in order to investigate the different levels of animal sociality, all of which are different stages that a colony may pass through. Eusociality, which is the highest level of animal sociality a species can attain, specifically had three characteristics that distinguished it from
4841-443: The colony. The cooperativeness was essential as the activity of one labor division greatly influenced the activity of another. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms , with individual castes being analogous to different tissue or cell types in a multicellular organism ; castes fulfill a specific role that contributes to the functioning and survival of the whole colony, while being incapable of independent survival outside
4944-410: The concept of information society has been discussed since the 1930s, in the present day, it is almost always applied to ways that information technologies impact society and culture. It therefore covers the effects of computers and telecommunications on the home, the workplace, schools, government, and various communities and organizations, as well as the emergence of new social forms in cyberspace. As
5047-422: The cost of investing in non-reproductive offspring, and an increased risk of disease. All reversals to solitarity have occurred among primitively eusocial groups; none have followed the emergence of advanced eusociality. The "point of no return" hypothesis posits that the morphological differentiation of reproductive and non-reproductive castes prevents highly eusocial species such as the honeybee from reverting to
5150-586: The daily collection of wild plants and the hunting of wild animals. Hunter-gatherers move around constantly in search of food. As a result, they do not build permanent villages or create a wide variety of artifacts . The need for mobility also limits the size of these societies, and they usually only form small groups such as bands and tribes , usually with fewer than 50 people per community. Bands and tribes are relatively egalitarian , and decisions are reached through consensus . There are no formal political offices containing real power in band societies, rather
5253-578: The degree of eusociality depends on the clime in which the species is found. Termites (order Blattodea , infraorder Isoptera ) make up another large portion of highly advanced eusocial animals. The colony is differentiated into various castes: the queen and king are the sole reproducing individuals; workers forage and maintain food and resources; and soldiers defend the colony against ant attacks. The latter two castes, which are sterile and perform highly specialized, complex social behaviors, are derived from different stages of pluripotent larvae produced by
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#17330863052595356-680: The dwarf mongoose, the breeding pair receives food priority and protection from subordinates and rarely has to defend against predators. Scientists have debated whether humans are prosocial or eusocial. Edward O. Wilson called humans eusocial apes, arguing for similarities to ants, and observing that early hominins cooperated to rear their children while other members of the same group hunted and foraged. Wilson and others argued that through cooperation and teamwork, ants and humans form superorganisms. Wilson's claims were vigorously rejected by critics of group selection theory, which grounded Wilson's argument, and because human reproductive labor
5459-438: The early phase of infection. This strategic positioning allows them to effectively defend against invaders, similar to how soldier distribution patterns are seen in other animals with defensive castes. They "appear to be an obligately sterile physical caste, akin to that of the most advanced social insects". Among mammals, two species in the rodent group Phiomorpha are eusocial, the naked mole-rat ( Heterocephalus glaber ) and
5562-509: The eight recorded species of parasitic shrimp that rely on fortress defense and live in groups of closely related individuals in tropical reefs and sponges. They live eusocially with a single breeding female, and a large number of male defenders armed with enlarged snapping claws. There is a single shared living space for the colony members, and the non-breeding members act to defend it. The fortress defense hypothesis additionally points out that because sponges provide both food and shelter, there
5665-524: The eusocial phenotype, with one queen supported by sterile workers and sexually active males ( drones ). In queenless colonies, the lack of queen pheromones causes winged females to quickly shed their wings, develop ovaries and lay eggs. These virgin replacement queens assume the role of the queen and start to produce queen pheromones. Similarly, queen weaver ants Oecophylla longinoda have exocrine glands that produce pheromones which prevent workers from laying reproductive eggs. Similar mechanisms exist in
5768-448: The eusocial state in their colonies; they may also eat eggs laid by other females or exert dominance by fighting. There are two eusocial rodents : the naked mole-rat and the Damaraland mole-rat . Some shrimps , such as Synalpheus regalis , are eusocial. E. O. Wilson and others have claimed that humans have evolved a weak form of eusociality. It has been suggested that the colonial and epiphytic staghorn fern , too, may make use of
5871-722: The evolution of eusociality is supported by evidence such as experimentally induced reproductive division of labor, for example when normally solitary queens are forced together. Conversely, female Damaraland mole-rats undergo hormonal changes that promote dispersal after periods of high rainfall. Climate too appears to be a selective agent driving social complexity; across bee lineages and Hymenoptera in general, higher forms of sociality are more likely to occur in tropical than temperate environments. Similarly, social transitions within halictid bees , where eusociality has been gained and lost multiple times, are correlated with periods of climatic warming. Social behavior in facultative social bees
5974-437: The evolution of eusociality, monogamy should be the ancestral state, because it maximizes the relatedness of colony members. Increased parasitism and predation rates are the primary ecological drivers of social organization. Group living affords colony members defense against enemies, specifically predators, parasites, and competitors, and allows them to gain advantage from superior foraging methods. The importance of ecology in
6077-630: The focus of a BBC documentary Cloudspotting , based on Pretor-Pinney's book The Cloudspotter's Guide . During an episode of Taskmaster , comedian Hugh Dennis revealed he is a member of the society. In 2017, the Cloud Appreciation Society was credited with adding the Asperitas classification of cloud to the World Meteorological Organization 's International Cloud Atlas . This article about an organisation in
6180-572: The functionalist school of thought, individuals in society work together like organs in the body to create emergent behavior, sometimes referred to as collective consciousness . 19th century sociologists Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim , for example, believed that society constitutes a separate "level" of reality, distinct from both biological and inorganic matter. Explanations of social phenomena had therefore to be constructed within this level, individuals being merely transient occupants of comparatively stable social roles. Conflict theorists take
6283-530: The further development of governance within and between communities. As of 2022 , according to The Economist , 43% of national governments were democracies , 35% autocracies , and 22% containing elements of both. Many countries have formed international political organizations and alliances, the largest being the United Nations with 193 member states. Trade, the voluntary exchange of goods and services, has long been an aspect of human societies, and it
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#17330863052596386-560: The gall-inhabiting behavior gives these species a defensible resource. They produce soldier castes for fortress defense and protection of the colony against predators, kleptoparasites , and competitors. In these groups, eusociality is produced by both high relatedness and by living in a restricted, shared area. Eusociality has evolved in three different lineages in the colonial crustacean genus Synalphaeus . S. regalis , S. microneptunus , S. filidigitus , S. elizabethae , S. chacei , S. riosi , S. duffyi , and S. cayoneptunus are
6489-430: The general well-being of humans in hunter gatherer societies challenges the purported relationship between technological advancement and human progress . Rather than searching for food on a daily basis, members of a pastoral society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet their food needs. Pastoralists typically live a nomadic life, moving their herds from one pasture to another. Community size in pastoral societies
6592-449: The habitat, and use more of the available resources than non-eusocial species. The trematodes are a class of parasitic flatworm, also known as flukes. One species, Haplorchis pumilio , has evolved eusociality involving a colony creating a class of sterile soldiers. One fluke invades a host and establishes a colony of dozens to thousands of clones that work together to take it over. Since rival trematode species can invade and replace
6695-536: The highly eusocial Apini (honey bees) and Meliponini (stingless bees), primitively eusocial Bombini (bumble bees), and the mostly solitary or weakly social Euglossini (orchid bees). Eusociality in these families is sometimes managed by a set of pheromones that alter the behavior of specific castes in the colony. These pheromones may act across different species, as observed in Apis andreniformis (black dwarf honey bee), where worker bees responded to queen pheromone from
6798-429: The hormonally based behavioral development of workers and suppress their ovarian development. Both behavioral effects mediated by the nervous system often leading to recognition of queens ( releaser ) and physiological effects on the reproductive and endocrine system ( primer ) are attributed to the same pheromones. These pheromones volatilize or are deactivated within thirty minutes, allowing workers to respond rapidly to
6901-416: The immature and mature reproductive worms. Soldiers are more aggressive than reproductives, attacking heterospecific trematodes that infect their host in vitro . H. pumilio soldiers do not attack conspecifics from other colonies. The soldiers are not evenly distributed throughout the host body. They are found in the highest numbers in the basal visceral mass, where competing trematodes tend to multiply during
7004-694: The implications of modernity , and that their analysis of non-Western cultures is therefore limited in scope. As examples of nonwestern thinkers who took a systematic approach to understanding society, al-Attas mentions Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) and José Rizal (1861–1896). Khaldun, an Arab living in the 14th century, understood society, along with the rest of the universe, as having "meaningful configuration", with its perceived randomness attributable to hidden causes. Khaldun conceptualized social structures as having two fundamental forms: nomadic and sedentary. Nomadic life has high social cohesion ( asabijja ), which Khaldun argued arose from kinship, shared customs, and
7107-553: The individuals cooperatively care for the brood of a single reproductive female (the queen) to which they are most likely related. Thus, it is uncertain whether mole rats are truly eusocial, since their social behavior depends largely on their resources and environment. Some mammals in the Carnivora and Primates have eusocial tendencies, especially meerkats ( Suricata suricatta ) and dwarf mongooses ( Helogale parvula ). These show cooperative breeding and marked reproductive skews. In
7210-399: The individuals in the colony are to some degree specialized for tasks, a division of labor . Eusociality is a rare but widespread phenomenon in species in at least seven orders in the animal kingdom , as shown in the phylogenetic tree (non-eusocial groups not shown). All species of termites are eusocial, and it is believed that they were the first eusocial animals to evolve, sometime in
7313-502: The jungle or forest, provide the main source of food in a horticultural society. These societies have a similar level of technology and complexity to pastoral societies. Along with pastoral societies, horticultural societies emerged about 10,000 years ago, after technological changes of the Agricultural Revolution made it possible to cultivate crops and raise animals. Horticulturists use human labor and simple tools to cultivate
7416-450: The land for one or more seasons. When the land becomes barren, horticulturists clear a new plot and leave the old plot to revert to its natural state. They may return to the original land several years later and begin the process again. By rotating their garden plots, horticulturists can stay in one area for a long period of time. This allows them to build permanent or semi-permanent villages. As with pastoral societies, surplus food leads to
7519-520: The latter half of the 20th century, theorists began to view society as socially constructed . In this vein, sociologist Peter L. Berger describes society as "dialectic": Society is created by humans, but this creation turns in turn creates or molds humans. The sociologic emphasis placed on functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, has been criticized as Eurocentric . The Malaysian sociologist Syed Farid al-Attas , for example, argues that Western thinkers are particularly interested in
7622-561: The loss of their queen. The levels of two of the aliphatic compounds increase rapidly in virgin queens within the first week after emergence from the pupa , consistent with their roles as sex attractants during the mating flight. Once a queen is mated and begins laying eggs, she starts producing the full blend of compounds. In several ant species, reproductive activity is associated with pheromone production by queens. Mated egg-laying queens are attractive to workers, whereas young winged virgin queens elicit little or no response. Among ants,
7725-610: The majority of social bee diversity, have their lowest diversity in the tropics, being largely limited to temperate regions. Once pre-adaptations such as group formation, nest building, high cost of dispersal, and morphological variation are present, between-group competition has been suggested as a driver of the transition to advanced eusociality. M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita, and E. O. Wilson proposed in 2010 that since eusociality produces an extremely altruistic society, eusocial groups should out-reproduce their less cooperative competitors, eventually eliminating all non-eusocial groups from
7828-430: The metaphor of a theater to develop the dramaturgical lens , which argues that roles provide scripts that govern social interactions. The division of humans into male and female gender roles has been marked culturally by a corresponding division of norms, practices , dress , behavior , rights, duties, privileges , status , and power . Some argue that gender roles arise naturally from sex differences , which lead to
7931-514: The nest for colony defense and foraging. In Lasioglossum aeneiventre , a halictid bee from Central America, nests may be headed by more than one female; such nests have more cells, and the number of active cells per female is correlated with the number of females in the nest, implying that having more females leads to more efficient building and provisioning of cells. In similar species with only one queen, such as Lasioglossum malachurum in Europe,
8034-446: The now-extinct Neanderthals . Early trade involved materials for creating tools, like obsidian , exchanged over short distances. In contrast, throughout antiquity and the medieval period, some of the most influential long-distance routes carried food and luxury goods, such as the spice trade . Early human economies were more likely to be based around gift giving than a bartering system. Early money consisted of commodities ;
8137-462: The oldest being in the form of cattle and the most widely used being cowrie shells . Money has since evolved into governmental issued coins , paper and electronic money . Human study of economics is a social science that looks at how societies distribute scarce resources among different people. There are massive inequalities in the division of wealth among humans; as of 2018 in China, Europe, and
8240-401: The opportunity. One plant, the epiphytic staghorn fern, Platycerium bifurcatum ( Polypodiaceae ), may exhibit a primitive form of eusocial behavior amongst clones. The evidence for this is that individuals live in colonies, where they are structured in different ways, with fronds of differing size and shape, to collect and store water and nutrients for the colony to use. At the top of
8343-514: The opposite view, and posit that individuals and social groups or social classes within society interact on the basis of conflict rather than agreement. One prominent conflict theorist is Karl Marx who conceived of society as operating on an economic "base" with a "superstructure" of government, family, religion and culture. Marx argues that the economic base determines the superstructure, and that throughout history, societal change has been driven by conflict between laborers and those who own
8446-432: The other levels: E. O. Wilson extended the terminology to include other social insects, such as ants, wasps, and termites. Originally, it was defined to include organisms (only invertebrates) that had the following three features: Eusociality was then discovered in a group of chordates , the mole-rats. Further research distinguished another possibly important criterion for eusociality, "the point of no return". This
8549-731: The parental role of males, the use of language to communicate, the specialization of labor, and the tendency to build "nests" (multigenerational camps, town, or cities). Some biologists, including entomologist E.O. Wilson , categorize humans as eusocial , placing humans with ants in the highest level of sociability on the spectrum of animal ethology , although others disagree. Social group living may have evolved in humans due to group selection in physical environments that made survival difficult. In Western sociology, there are three dominant paradigms for understanding society: functionalism (also known as structural functionalism), conflict theory , and symbolic interactionism . According to
8652-499: The people that they govern. There have been many forms of government throughout human history, with various ways of allocating power, and with different levels and means of control over the population. In early history, distribution of political power was determined by the availability of fresh water , fertile soil , and temperate climate of different locations. As farming populations gathered in larger and denser communities, interactions between different groups increased, leading to
8755-645: The pre-colonial era, when the Filipinos controlled trade routes and had higher economic activity, to the period of colonial rule, and argued that exploitation, economic disorder, and colonial policies that discouraged farming led to a decreased interest in work. Sociologists tend to classify societies based on their level of technology, and place societies in three broad categories: pre-industrial , industrial , and postindustrial . Subdivisions of these categories vary, and classifications are often based on level of technology, communication, and economy. One example of such
8858-484: The production of food. Agrarian societies are especially noted for their extremes of social classes and rigid social mobility. As land is the major source of wealth, social hierarchy develops based on landownership and not labor. The system of stratification is characterized by three coinciding contrasts: governing class versus the masses , urban minority versus peasant majority, and literate minority versus illiterate majority. This results in two distinct subcultures;
8961-613: The production of goods. Advanced industrial societies see a shift toward an increase in service sectors, over manufacturing. Service industries include education, health and finance. An information society is a society where the usage, creation , distribution , manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Proponents of the idea that modern-day global society is an information society posit that information technologies are impacting most important forms of social organization, including education, economy, health, government, warfare , and levels of democracy. Although
9064-627: The queen pheromone system of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta includes both releaser and primer pheromones. A queen recognition (releaser) pheromone is stored in the poison sac along with three other compounds. These compounds elicit a behavioral response from workers. Several primer effects have also been demonstrated. Pheromones initiate reproductive development in new winged females, called female sexuals. These chemicals inhibit workers from rearing male and female sexuals, suppress egg production in other queens of multiple queen colonies, and cause workers to execute excess queens. These pheromones maintain
9167-529: The rate of homicide in band societies. However, rates of violence vary widely according to societal norms, and rates of homicide in societies that have legal systems and strong cultural attitudes against violence stand at about 0.01%. Eusocial Eusociality ( Greek εὖ eu "good" and social ) is the highest level of organization of sociality . It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within
9270-482: The related Apis florea (red dwarf honey bee). Pheromones are sometimes used in these castes to assist with foraging. Workers of the Australian stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria , for instance, mark food sources with a pheromone, helping their nest mates to find the food. Reproductive specialization generally involves the production of sterile members of the species, which carry out specialized tasks to care for
9373-576: The reproductive caste. Most eusocial societies exist in arthropods , while a few are found in mammals . Some ferns may exhibit a primitive form of eusocial behavior. Eusociality has evolved multiple times in different insect orders, including hymenopterans, termites, thrips, aphids, and beetles. The order Hymenoptera contains the largest group of eusocial insects, including ants , bees , and wasps —divided into castes: reproductive queens , drones , more or less sterile workers, and sometimes also soldiers that perform specialized tasks. In
9476-403: The reproductive caste. Some soldiers have jaws so enlarged (specialized for defense and attack) that they are unable to feed themselves and must be fed by workers. Austroplatypus incompertus is a species of ambrosia beetle native to Australia, and is the first beetle (order Coleoptera ) to be recognized as eusocial. This species forms colonies in which a single female is fertilized, and
9579-492: The reproductive members. Individuals may have behavior and morphology modified for group defense, including self-sacrificing behavior . For example, members of the sterile caste of the honeypot ants such as Myrmecocystus fill their abdomens with liquid food until they become immobile and hang from the ceilings of the underground nests, acting as food storage for the rest of the colony. Not all social insects have distinct morphological differences between castes. For example, in
9682-626: The reproductive output of other individuals that share their genes, especially their close relatives. Natural selection favors individuals to help their relatives when the cost of helping is less than the benefit gained by their relative multiplied by the fraction of genes that they share, i.e. when Cost < relatedness * Benefit . W. D. Hamilton suggested in 1964 that eusociality could evolve more easily among haplodiploid species such as Hymenoptera, because of their unusual relatedness structure. In haplodiploid species, females develop from fertilized eggs and males develop from unfertilized eggs. Because
9785-610: The same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships ( social relations ) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions ; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. Human social structures are complex and highly cooperative, featuring the specialization of labor via social roles . Societies construct roles and other patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or concepts acceptable or unacceptable—these expectations around behavior within
9888-574: The solitary state. Pheromones play an important role in the physiological mechanisms of eusociality. Enzymes involved in the production and perception of pheromones were important for the emergence of eusociality within both termites and hymenopterans. The best-studied queen pheromone system in social insects is that of the honey bee Apis mellifera . Queen mandibular glands produce a mixture of five compounds, three aliphatic and two aromatic , which control workers. Mandibular gland extracts inhibit workers from constructing queen cells, which can delay
9991-493: The steep and rigid stratification of agrarian societies. Industrial societies, which emerged in the 18th century in the Industrial Revolution , rely heavily on machines powered by external sources for the mass production of goods. Whereas in pre-industrial societies the majority of labor takes place in primary industries focused on extracting raw materials (farming, fishing, mining, etc.), in industrial societies, labor
10094-749: The upper Jurassic period (~150 million years ago). The other orders shown contain both eusocial and non-eusocial species, including many lineages where eusociality is inferred to be the ancestral state. Thus the number of independent evolutions of eusociality ( clades ) is not known. The major eusocial groups are shown in boldface in the phylogenetic tree. Mole-rats [REDACTED] Synalpheus spp. [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Kladothrips spp. [REDACTED] various Aphids [REDACTED] Austroplatypus incompertus [REDACTED] many Vespidae (wasps) [REDACTED] [REDACTED] many Bees [REDACTED] Staghorn fern Platycerium bifurcatum [REDACTED] Prior to
10197-478: The urban elite versus the peasant masses. Moreover, this means cultural differences within agrarian societies are greater than differences between them. The landowning strata typically combine government, religious, and military institutions to justify and enforce their ownership, and support elaborate patterns of consumption, slavery , serfdom , or peonage is commonly the lot of the primary producer. Rulers of agrarian societies often do not manage their empire for
10300-426: The well-studied social wasp Polistes versicolor , dominant females perform tasks such as building new cells and ovipositing, while subordinate females tend to perform tasks like feeding the larvae and foraging. The task differentiation between castes can be seen in the fact that subordinates complete 81.4% of the total foraging activity, while dominants only complete 18.6% of the total foraging. Eusocial species with
10403-434: The whole, industrial societies are marked by the increased power of human beings. Technological advancements mean that industrial societies have increased potential for deadly warfare. Governments use information technologies to exert greater control over the populace. Industrial societies also have an increased environmental impact. Post-industrial societies are societies dominated by information and services, rather than
10506-438: Was derived from the noun socius (" comrade , friend , ally"). Humans , along with their closest relatives bonobos and chimpanzees , are highly social animals. This biological context suggests that the underlying sociability required for the formation of societies is hardwired into human nature. Human society features high degrees of cooperation, and differs in important ways from groups of chimps and bonobos, including
10609-422: Was followed by at least one reversal to solitarity, giving a total of at least nine reversals. In a few species, solitary and eusocial colonies appear simultaneously in the same population, and different populations of the same species may be fully solitary or eusocial. This suggests that eusociality is costly to maintain, and can only persist when ecological variables favor it. Disadvantages of eusociality include
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