aggregation

A colony differs from an aggregation, which is a group whose members have no interaction. Small, functionally specialized, attached organisms called polyps in cnidarians and zooids in bryozoans form colonies and may be modified for capturing prey, feeding, or reproduction. Colonies of social insects (e.g., ants, bees) usually include castes…

…species, when they form simple aggregations, cooperate in sexual or parental behavior, engage in disputes over territory and access to mates, or simply communicate across space.

…a multifaceted continuum from simple aggregations to the highly organized and complex levels of social organization found in eusocial species. Biologists interested in sociality focus on how cooperation increases an individual’s genetic legacy, either by increasing its ability to produce offspring directly or by increasing the number of offspring produced…

…role in the evolution of aggregation.

On the other hand, aggregation may be advantageous due to the energy saved by huddling during cold weather, increased survival through group defense, or increased ability to acquire, hold, and make efficient use of resources. Animals may aggregate by mutual attraction to each other, by mutual attraction to limited…

Frequently, the aggregation of one sex provides opportunities for the other. For example, when females aggregate due to the clumping of food or nest sites, males are likely to aggregate at these sites as well because they are the most efficient places to find females with which…

…beneficial for individuals to interact, aggregation may sometimes occur because each individual requires access to a limited resource with a patchy distribution. In such cases, clumped individuals may only appear to form a social group. In fact, each individual is exploiting the resource without interacting socially. In practice, however, the…

The question of how aggregations form is quite different from the question of how they function. For example, use of conventional hilltop mating sites by desert butterflies is thought to involve a mutual attraction to a site, but the function of site affinity is to locate or attract a…

Aggregations have been explored extensively from the standpoint of their impact on survival. The primary functions of aggregation appear to be feeding and defense. A general theory explaining why individuals should prefer to aggregate was first proposed by the Briton W.D.…

…the advantages of living in aggregations as both exploit the potential benefits of living in groups. Moving about in groups can provide additional advantages, such as the reduction in turbulence and energy savings accrued by geese migrating in V-formations. However, dispersal and migration are energetically expensive and fraught with danger…

…in which organisms gather in clumps; or a uniform pattern, with a roughly equal spacing of individuals. The type of pattern often results from the nature of the relationships within the population. Social animals, such as chimpanzees, tend to gather in groups, while territorial animals, such as birds, tend to…