Termites

Termites are presented as social insects whose colonies make cooperation look like a collective purpose, while the book explains that apparent self-sacrifice and farming can be understood through the evolutionary interests of genes. They appear both in the account of sterile workers and in the example of fungus cultivation that evolved independently in termites and ants.

Social Insects and the Colony

The book groups termites with ants and wasps as highly social insects. Their colonies can seem almost like organisms in their own right: workers share food, communicate through chemical signals, and defend the colony against intruders. In this comparison, the colony’s reproductive individuals resemble a germ line, while sterile workers resemble the non-reproductive cells of a body.

That analogy helps explain why a worker’s sacrifice need not conflict with gene-level selection. A sterile worker does not produce offspring of its own; its efforts instead support relatives carrying many of the same genes. The death of an individual worker is therefore compared to the loss of a leaf from a tree, rather than to the loss of an animal that might otherwise reproduce.

Colony Roles and Reproduction

A social-insect colony is described as a large family, usually descended from one mother. Workers may occupy distinct castes, including small workers, large workers, soldiers, and specialized forms. Reproductive females are queens; reproductive males may be called drones or kings. In advanced societies, reproductives concentrate on producing offspring, while workers provide food and protection and care for the brood.

The distinction between bearers and carers could, in principle, evolve in any population, but it is stable only if carers are close kin to those they care for—at least as closely related as they would be to their own offspring. The book says this division has apparently evolved in this form only among social insects. It then frames the workers’ role as an evolutionary question: whether queens control workers for the queen’s benefit, or workers effectively manage reproductive relatives as a way of propagating copies of their own genes.

Fungus Cultivation

Termites in Africa are said to have evolved fungus cultivation independently of several New World ant species. The ants’ best-known example, the parasol ants, prepare compost beds from chewed leaves and grow a particular fungus. Their immense colonies may exceed two million individuals, and their underground nests can extend to depths of ten feet or more; some involve the excavation of as much as forty tons of soil.

The leaves collected by the workers are not eaten directly. Instead, they provide material for the fungus, which the ants harvest and feed to their brood. The fungus breaks down leaf material more efficiently than the ants’ own digestive systems would. The account suggests that the fungus may benefit as well, because the ants propagate it and clear competing fungi from its gardens. This relationship is described as a kind of mutual altruism, and the independently evolved termite system makes the example significant beyond ants alone.

Significance in the Gene-Centered Argument

Termites help show how cooperation can arise without requiring a colony to act for an abstract common good. Worker sterility, caste divisions, and the support of reproductive relatives are presented as consequences of the genetic relationships within a colony. Their fungus cultivation adds a different kind of cooperation: one in which the organisms’ activities can benefit both the cultivator and the crop.

Across these examples, the book’s emphasis falls on mechanisms and outcomes rather than conscious plans. A colony can resemble a unified organism, and a cultivated fungus can seem like a resource deliberately managed for the future; the evolutionary account instead asks how the traits and relationships persist through the reproductive routes available to the genes involved.