Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The correlation between kinship and behaviour in non-human primates
- 2 Co-operation and reciprocity in birds and mammals
- 3 Kinship and fellowship in ants and social wasps
- 4 Successes and failures of parent–offspring recognition in animals
- 5 Kinship, kin discrimination and mate choice
- 6 Genetic components of kin recognition in mammals
- 7 Kin recognition in amphibians
- 8 Kin recognition cues of vertebrates
- 9 Recognizing kin: ontogeny and classification
- 10 Parental states as mechanisms for kinship recognition and deception about relatedness
- 11 Fetal learning: implications for the development of kin recognition
- 12 Information processing and storage during filial imprinting
- 13 The honey bee as a model kin recognition system
- 14 Mutual mother–infant recognition in humans
- Author index
- Species and common name index
- Subject index
13 - The honey bee as a model kin recognition system
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The correlation between kinship and behaviour in non-human primates
- 2 Co-operation and reciprocity in birds and mammals
- 3 Kinship and fellowship in ants and social wasps
- 4 Successes and failures of parent–offspring recognition in animals
- 5 Kinship, kin discrimination and mate choice
- 6 Genetic components of kin recognition in mammals
- 7 Kin recognition in amphibians
- 8 Kin recognition cues of vertebrates
- 9 Recognizing kin: ontogeny and classification
- 10 Parental states as mechanisms for kinship recognition and deception about relatedness
- 11 Fetal learning: implications for the development of kin recognition
- 12 Information processing and storage during filial imprinting
- 13 The honey bee as a model kin recognition system
- 14 Mutual mother–infant recognition in humans
- Author index
- Species and common name index
- Subject index
Summary
Recognition operates at many levels in biological organisms. At the suborganismal level, immune systems manufacture antibodies that are able to recognize and bind to foreign substances (antigens), thereby initiating a process that leads to antigen destruction. At the organismal level, individuals discriminate between objects in their environments as a function of the objects', say, nutritional value. At the population level, social structures are set up by individuals who are able to classify their conspecifics in terms of belonging to a particular group or class of individuals. If group structure is based on kinship between individuals then some type of kin recognition system is usually required to maintain the integrity of kin groups.
Recognition systems at all levels involve communication of information, whether the information is stored in the stereochemistry of molecules or the morphology of body features. In the simplest recognition systems, the messenger carrying the information is the object itself (e.g. an antigen) and the entity receiving the information executes the action (e.g. a lymphocyte). In more complex recognition processes, an object encodes a message in the form of a signal that is propagated by some physical (light, sound) or chemical transport (odour) process. Communication is completed when this signal is intercepted by a sensory system, decoded, and processed by the brain (an action may be initiated or the organism may decide not to respond). This definition is not limited to biological systems: it covers machines such as barcode readers.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Kin Recognition , pp. 358 - 412Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991
- 14
- Cited by