This book provides comprehensive, astoundingly thorough coverage of the 'minor' social insect groups, which have been neglected since Fabre brought the study of insect behavior to life over 100 years ago. The chapters make accessible for the first time a huge trove of obscure yet endlessly fascinating natural history, which should entertain as well as inspire future researchers to study its six-legged bestiary. I was especially pleased to see the historical treatments of issues and research topics, which put the fields and topics in perspective. The Other Insect Societies is a tremendously impressive piece of scholarship. -- Bernard Crespi, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Simon Fraser University This marvelously researched and comprehensive work fills a major gap in the literature on insect social behavior...Jim Costa has done this only as a seasoned entomologist could accomplish it, with a full account of each major taxonomic group in turn, including the contextual information needed to understand the significance of the social behavior its constituent species display...[He] routinely travels from taxonomy to anatomy, from physiology to ecology, and into broad issues of natural history to create in this book an overall mosaic of what the 'other' insect societies are and what they have achieved across hundreds of millions of years of evolution. -- from Edward O. Wilson's Commentary on The Other Insect Societies
James T. Costa is Executive Director of the Highlands Biological Station and is Professor of Biology at Western Carolina University. Bert Holldobler is now Foundation Professor of Biology at Arizona State University; formerly Chair of Behavioral Physiology and Sociology at the Theodor Boveri Institute, University of Wurzburg. He is also the recipient of the U.S. Senior Scientist Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German government. Until 1990, he was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University. Edward O. Wilson is Pellegrino University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. In addition to two Pulitzer Prizes (one of which he shares with Bert Holldobler), Wilson has won many scientific awards, including the National Medal of Science and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
This book provides comprehensive, astoundingly thorough coverage of
the 'minor' social insect groups, which have been neglected since
Fabre brought the study of insect behavior to life over 100 years
ago. The chapters make accessible for the first time a huge trove
of obscure yet endlessly fascinating natural history, which should
entertain as well as inspire future researchers to study its
six-legged bestiary. I was especially pleased to see the historical
treatments of issues and research topics, which put the fields and
topics in perspective. The Other Insect Societies is a tremendously
impressive piece of scholarship.
*Bernard Crespi, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Simon Fraser
University*
This marvelously researched and comprehensive work fills a major
gap in the literature on insect social behavior...Jim Costa has
done this only as a seasoned entomologist could accomplish it, with
a full account of each major taxonomic group in turn, including the
contextual information needed to understand the significance of the
social behavior its constituent species display...[He] routinely
travels from taxonomy to anatomy, from physiology to ecology, and
into broad issues of natural history to create in this book an
overall mosaic of what the 'other' insect societies are and what
they have achieved across hundreds of millions of years of
evolution.
*from Edward O. Wilson's Commentary on The Other Insect
Societies*
Perhaps we need fresh data from previously neglected kinds of
insect societies. This is the approach James Costa offers in The
Other Insect Societies. Costa launches the entomological equivalent
of subaltern studies, focusing deliberately on species that have
failed to make it to Wilson's elite grade of 'eusociality.' Readers
will find in the book a fascinating wealth of information about the
obscure social lives of earwigs, grasshoppers, crickets, mantids,
cockroaches, aphids, treehoppers, bugs, thrips, beetles,
caterpillars, sawflies, and even some non-insect anthropods.
Costa's book will inevitably be compared with The Evolution of
Social Behavior in Insects and Arachnids, edited by Jae C. Choe and
Bernard Crespi...I am rather optimistic that, paralleling the
effects of the subaltern studies of Indian historians, a focus on
other insect societies will provide valuable fresh perspectives
useful even for understanding present-day eusocial species...A few
hours with Costa's book will bring any beginner up to date with a
century's worth of scattered literature on almost everything that
is known about any of the many obscure groups of insects
discussed.
*Science*
E.O. Wilson calls the honeybees, the army and leaf-cutter ants, and
the mound-building termites the superstars of insect social
behavior. In this demanding but interesting book, Costa explores
the other arthropod orders for social behavior. A few of his
chapter titles suggest the range of areas and activities he
explores: 'Earwig Mothers,' 'Hopper Herds and Cricket Families,'
'Samurai Aphids' and 'Communes and Family Fortresses.' A good
present for the serious scientist.
*Buffalo News*
For much of its history, the study of insect sociality has been
dominated by the study of ants, bees and wasps...The other social
arthropods have been largely ignored or relegated to fringe status.
James T. Costa seeks to correct this oversight with his book The
Other Insect Societies. He succeeds in showcasing the true
diversity of social behaviour among insects, spiders and
crustaceans, and provides support for a set of alternative
hypotheses about social evolution that should stimulate research
and fuel scientific debate for years to come...Although others have
attempted to synthesize the literature on non-eusocial insect
societies, this is the first major single-author monograph on the
topic for more than a decade...Many of the taxa covered in the book
are illustrated with stunning colour photographs. Costa takes a
refreshingly unbiased approach to examining these fascinating
societies, providing insight into how non-eusocial insect societies
are structured, as well as details of their systematics, natural
history, ecology and anatomy. His writing is scholarly enough to
appeal to professionals, yet it is accessible enough to enlighten
any interested reader. His book gives the 'other insect societies'
well-deserved time in the spotlight.
*Nature*
In the introduction the author sets a goal of being comprehensive
but not encyclopaedic, and to highlight important outstanding
questions that will entice a new generation of eager young
naturalists to take a closer look. This goal is, in my opinion,
fully accomplished. The book will become a standard reference work
on the subject for many years to come and boost research on insects
that would otherwise be neglected or poorly studied. This unique
source of information should not be missing from the bookshelf of
any student of insect ecology or socio-biology. Nevertheless,
broadly interested zoologists and ecologists as well as laymen
naturalists will undoubtedly find it both instructive and
entertaining.
*European Journal of Entomology*
When one thinks of social insects it is usually of the very
organized (eusocial) groups such as termites and ants, and the
eusocial species of bees and wasps, which have highly complex
societies. This book is an important reference to the literature of
other, less complex, social arrangements found in many groups of
insects and other arthropods. Costa has taken great pains to
compile an erudite reference work that includes discussions of
sociality in Derrnaptera, Orthoptera, Embiidina, Manteodea,
Phasmatodea, Blattaria, Psocoptera, Zoraptera, Hemiptera,
Thysanoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and some other
arthropod groups including arachnids, centipedes, millipedes, and
crustaceans.
*Choice*
In this extraordinarily thorough book, James T. Costa sets the
record straight and rebalances our view of sociality in insects by
dealing with the neglected also-rans...[A] tour de force of natural
history...The Other Insect Societies provides an encyclopedic and
data-rich overview of that sociality, beautifully written with a
love for the subject and with humor. It is a remarkable and
eye-opening collation, a ground-breaking and first-class reference
work of science and natural history.
*Times Literary Supplement*
The Other Insect Societies is a stunning feat of scholarship...I
think that everyone who teaches entomology should buy a copy and
use it. Costa has a most engaging, unforced enthusiasm for these
animals, and we are greatly in his debt that he has unlocked this
secret world for us.
*Trends in Ecology and Evolution*
I was very impressed by the depth of knowledge of the author of
each taxonomic group and of the contextual information needed to
understand the social behaviour of its members...The book will
become a standard reference work on the subject for many years to
come and boost research on insects that would otherwise be
neglected or poorly studied. This unique source of information
should not be missing from the bookshelf of any student of insect
ecology or socio-biology. Nevertheless, broadly interested
zoologists and ecologists as well as laymen naturalists will
undoubtedly find it both instructive and entertaining.
*European Journal of Entomology*
[Costa] is an experienced and passionate naturalist that makes him
an ideal author for this book: he simultaneously manages to be a
narrator--understood by the public--as well as a scientist,
achieving comprehensiveness in the subject.
*Journal of Insect Conservation*
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