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The HoneyComb Paradigm for Research on Collective Human Behavior
Published on: January 19, 2019
Me and we: the interplay between individual and group behavioral variation in social collectives
Adria C LeBoeuf1, Christina M Grozinger2
1Department of Ecology and Evolution, Center for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, UNIL-Sorge, Batiment Biophore, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract:
In social insects, substantial behavioral variation exists among individuals and across colonies. Here, we discuss the role of individual variation in shaping behavioral tendencies of social groups, and highlight gaps in our knowledge about the role of the social group in modulating individual behavioral tendencies. We summarize our knowledge of the genetic mechanisms underpinning these processes, and describe the use of genomic tools to better understand the influence of social context on individuals. We discuss rapid collective phasic transitions, in which a group of individuals engages in a common novel behavior together, as a potentially highly informative model system in which to comprehensively investigate the interplay between individual and group variation.
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