“Evolution of social insect communication: selective pressures imposed by eavesdropping social bees”
Presenter: James Nieh, Professor, Ecology, Behavior & Evolution, UC San Diego
Hosted by Juliana Rangel
Houston Regional Ecology & Evolution Student Symposium
EEB core faculty member Juliana Rangel (ENTO) will be the keynote speaker at the annual Houston Regional Ecology and Evolution Student Symposium Friday, May 4th at the University of Houston.
See event website for schedule.
EEB Fall 2016 Seminar Series – Thomas Seeley
Title: “Collective intelligence in honey bees: How a swarm of bees chooses its home’ [summary]
Speaker: Thomas D. Seeley, Cornell University
Hosted by Juliana Rangel
Refreshments at 3:15
With the right organization, a group can overcome the cognitive limitations of its members and achieve a high collective IQ. To understand how to endow groups with collective intelligence, it is useful to examine natural systems that have evolved this ability. An excellent example is a swarm of honey bees solving the life-or-death problem of choosing a new home. A bee swarm accomplishes this through a process that was discovered in Germany in the 1940s, and that has been analyzed more deeply in recent years. It includes collective fact-finding, open sharing of information, vigorous debating, and fair voting by the 300-500 bees in a swarm that function as nest-site scouts.
