Community of Living Things; Colonies

<v Speaker>Organisms often live close together in nature and they may function <v Speaker>as a group. There are many different kinds of groups and different kinds <v Speaker>of relationships within them. <v Speaker>One kind of group is the colony. <v Speaker>Perhaps it all began on the scale of a single drop of water. <v Speaker>Within this drop, maybe a variety of single celled organisms <v Speaker>that are by comparison, a primitive form of life. <v Speaker>The life functions of a single celled organism are taken care of by the <v Speaker>individual. <v Speaker>It seeks its own food. <v Speaker>It reproduces itself and accomplishes other necessary tasks <v Speaker>by itself for itself.

<v Speaker>This seems to be a fairly secure way of life. <v Speaker>The individual does not depend on another to accomplish the tasks necessary for <v Speaker>survival. <v Speaker>However, a single celled organism can never do more than what it alone can <v Speaker>accomplish. <v Speaker>A colony offers another approach. <v Speaker>On a primitive level, a small number of individuals joined together to form <v Speaker>a plant colony, a type of green algae. <v Speaker>These primitive plant colonies or groups of individuals little more than interconnected. <v Speaker>But each group does work as a unit. <v Speaker>And that in itself is the beginning of coordinated activity. <v Speaker>One of the larger plant colonies is the volvox, a hollow sphere

<v Speaker>of cells. <v Speaker>The volvox may be made up of thousands of individuals spinning about <v Speaker>as one unit. The individuals in the volvox colony are linked <v Speaker>together with strands of interconnected jelly-like material. <v Speaker>Their connection means coordination. <v Speaker>Each of the individual cells uses two whip-like tails to move <v Speaker>the group. With coordination, the volvox rolls in the same <v Speaker>direction. <v Speaker>It moves toward light and is guided by light sensitive cells in the front <v Speaker>part of the colony. <v Speaker>The volvox illustrates how an efficient colony reproduces. <v Speaker>Each of the dark objects in these volvox are daughter colonies, <v Speaker>offspring formed by only certain reproductive individuals in the colony.

<v Speaker>So the other individuals depend on a few to reproduce for the entire group. <v Speaker>And all of this may be happening within a drop of water. <v Speaker>Yet we normally see much larger organisms, ones that have social <v Speaker>behavior. <v Speaker>And this leads us from the water to a nearby flower. <v Speaker>Where we find a small social insect. <v Speaker>The honeybee is more than just one individual. <v Speaker>It is part of a colony. <v Speaker>It is a worker which has the job of gathering food for itself and others. <v Speaker>Constantly moving, the worker gathers nectar at the base of the flowers.

<v Speaker>Upon returning home, the honeybee leads us to the beehive <v Speaker>that may contain approximately 70000 bees in one colony. <v Speaker>This social activity is far more complex than microscopic colonies. <v Speaker>Here, the work is further divided up among individuals. <v Speaker>Even the worker bees may have different roles. <v Speaker>Some workers will remain with the honeycomb forming, cleaning and <v Speaker>tending the young. <v Speaker>Others may perform other functions, such as ventilating, bringing <v Speaker>a breeze through the hive. <v Speaker>This is done if the hive is too hot or smoky. <v Speaker>The bees fan with their wings. <v Speaker>If alarmed, these bees may make threatening gestures. <v Speaker>The pointed abdomens each hold a stinger that could do more than gesture.

<v Speaker>Other workers have a day to day job of guarding the entrance to the hive. <v Speaker>The guard bees usually touch still other workers who forage <v Speaker>in the fields. The guard bees immediately recognize members of the colony <v Speaker>and those that don't belong. <v Speaker>For those that belong, there may even be an exchange of food or <v Speaker>moisture. <v Speaker>For those that do not, they may find an unwelcome reception <v Speaker>and perhaps death. <v Speaker>The guards remove the dead insect.

<v Speaker>The hive activity centers around the queen, marked by a white dot, <v Speaker>the queen's ability to lay eggs enables the hive to prosper because <v Speaker>casualties are high and the bee lifespan is short. <v Speaker>The hive is often as healthy as it's queen is productive. <v Speaker>The Members of the hive may randomly crawl <v Speaker>over one another, but they turn to face the Queen as she moves through the colony. <v Speaker>The bees have an established society with specific jobs for specific individuals. <v Speaker>By depending on one another, each doing its tasks, the group <v Speaker>survives. <v Speaker>Another social insect is the ant.

<v Speaker>Similar in many respects to the bee colony, ants also have large numbers <v Speaker>of workers. The workers of the Carpenter ant colony clear tunnels <v Speaker>and remove debris in order to establish the nest. <v Speaker>They can carry many times their weight, seem to sense where to dump debris. <v Speaker>The type of path or tunnel to be created. <v Speaker>Sometimes they will take the debris to a certain point and drop it where others <v Speaker>will later move it further. <v Speaker>So the ants move as a unit, each doing its job in establishing <v Speaker>the nest. <v Speaker>When food or moisture is discovered, the individuals that find it <v Speaker>may not only lead others to the discovery, but they eat and drink not

<v Speaker>just for themselves. <v Speaker>Taking an ample supply, they will carry the food or moisture to others in the <v Speaker>colony. <v Speaker>Almost as if kissing, the insects share what has been found. <v Speaker>Once again, this demonstrates that each member of the colony is <v Speaker>more than an individual. <v Speaker>It is an integral part of a group, the concern <v Speaker>for the entire group is also seen when a member of another ant colony enters <v Speaker>the nest. It is on its way into hostile surroundings. <v Speaker>The ants immediately sense the invader as an alarm substance is passed almost <v Speaker>instantly through the colony. <v Speaker>The fighting is usually left to the soldier ants who are much larger than workers.

<v Speaker>The soldiers have large, strong jaws. <v Speaker>Their job is to defend the colony. <v Speaker>If the invader does not leave quickly, the fight will be to the death. <v Speaker>The soldiers and possibly others attack the invader with open jaws, <v Speaker>they engage in combat. <v Speaker>If the invader is strong enough to challenge a weaker colony, the largest and strongest <v Speaker>individual may join in. This individual has wings and is <v Speaker>the queen. Normally, she might not be needed to defend her colony, <v Speaker>but the invader is not quickly killed and she brings her enormous jaws <v Speaker>into combat. This endangers the entire colony because as with the <v Speaker>bees, the health of the queen is essential to the well-being of the entire colony. <v Speaker>But she cautiously engages in combat.

<v Speaker>The toll is heavy for all. <v Speaker>The mutilated and the dead. <v Speaker>The nest soon returns to normal. <v Speaker>The ants return to regular duties. <v Speaker>The invader is left unable to move and slowly die. <v Speaker>Once the invader is dead, the queen will resume her normal activities. <v Speaker>This may include inspection of the nest. <v Speaker>As she looks the nest over, she may detect the chemical trails left by <v Speaker>her colony in the building of the nest.

<v Speaker>She may touch individuals and perhaps communicate with them chemically. <v Speaker>Ants seem to have a language made up of odor. <v Speaker>The queen will eventually settle down and move to her normal sheltered chamber <v Speaker>where she will rest prior to her important task of laying eggs. <v Speaker>During this time, other ants may attend her. <v Speaker>Eventually, egg-laying continues. <v Speaker>The young ants may be moved about by certain individuals. <v Speaker>The colony continues. <v Speaker>So the ultimate colony is a group of individuals that have specific <v Speaker>individual jobs, but function as one

<v Speaker>in the community of living things.