7. Information Networks in the History of Life

Robert GiegengackYvette Bordeaux

Abstract

What can we learn about networks from ants, honeybees, and other animals with evolved social structures? The impact of information and communications strategies on network dynamics did not arrive with the emergence of computers, cellphones, and the Internet. In this chapter, we describe communication networks selected from among many that have been studied in communities of nonhuman organisms. We explore the extent to which communication linkages have controlled the development of those networks. In some of those networks, developmental histories are manifest as evolved body plans and gender roles not represented in human communities. Many of those networks ...

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