Social insect societies are long-standing models for understanding social behaviour and evolution. Unlike other advanced biological societies (such as the multicellular body), the component parts of social insect societies can be easily deconstructed and manipulated. Recent methodological and theoretical innovations have exploited this trait to address an expanded range of biological questions. We illustrate the broadening range of biological insight coming from social insect biology with four examples. These new frontiers promote open-minded, interdisciplinary exploration of one of the richest and most complex of biological phenomena: sociality.

中文翻译：

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解构超级有机体和社会以解决生物学中的重大问题

社会昆虫学会是理解社会行为和进化的长期模式。与其他先进的生物社会（如多细胞体）不同，社会昆虫社会的组成部分很容易被破坏和操纵。最近的方法和理论创新已经利用了该特性来解决生物学问题的扩大范围。我们通过四个例子说明了来自社会昆虫生物学的广泛生物学见解。这些新领域促进了对最丰富，最复杂的生物现象之一：社会性的开明，跨学科探索。