Are societies resilient? Challenges faced by social insects in a changing world

Abstract

Social insects are considered to be highly successful and ecologically dominant because they comprise the majority of insect biomass in many ecosystems. One key to the success of social insects is their highly coordinated and organized behavior, which allows them to more efficiently exploit resources. However, as our world undergoes dramatic global changes, such as climate change, deforestation, and the introduction of invasive species, the very traits that have provided evolutionary advantages may become liabilities for some social insect species. Here we propose that some social traits, which are conventionally thought to be beneficial, will be detrimental in the context of rapid environmental change. We focus on four fundamental aspects of complex insect societies (coordination of cooperative behavior, worker caste organization, social immunity, and ecosystem engineering) and make predictions about how social lifestyles may become compromised in the face of ecological adversity. We intend to bring attention to the unique vulnerabilities of social insects and propose novel avenues of research to better illuminate the consequences of global change for social insects.