Metabolic Division of Labor Creates Organismal Cohesion

Explore a fascinating 52-minute lecture examining how metabolic division of labor in ant colonies creates organismal cohesion and enables complex collective behaviors. Delve into the mechanisms of social transfers where metabolized materials move between individuals, allowing one organism's genome to influence another's fitness. Learn about various forms of social transfers in social insects, from mating and egg-laying to trophallaxis and adaptive cannibalism. Discover how these transfers establish metabolic interdependencies that can lead to evolutionary transitions in individuality. Examine cutting-edge research comparing societal and superorganismal ant species through transcriptomics, proteomics, behavioral tracking, and genome-scale metabolic models. Understand the broader implications of these findings for systems with shared goals and collective resource allocation, from multicellular organisms to electric vehicle fleets. Presented by Adria LeBoeuf from the University of Cambridge at IPAM's Modeling Multi-Scale Collective Intelligences Workshop.