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Seeley, Thomas Dyer
Cornell Faculty Member
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Positions
- Professor, Neurobiology and Behavior (BIO NB), College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS)
- Department Chairperson, Neurobiology and Behavior (BIO NB), College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS)
- Department Chairperson, Neurobiology and Behavior (BIO NB), College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS)
Thomas D. Seeley is Professor and Chairman in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. He is a world authority on animal behavior, especially the social behavior of honey bees. At home more in the field than the laboratory, his scientific work features observational and experimental investigations of the inner workings of honey bee colonies living under natural conditions. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is the recipient of numerous honors for his scientific work including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Alexander von Humboldt Distinguished U.S. Scientist Award, and a Gold Medal from Apimondia for his book The Wisdom of the Hive. Currently, he is working on a new book, Swarm Intelligence in Bees.
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Research
research overview
- My scientific work focuses on understanding the phenomenon of swarm intelligence (SI): the solving of cognitive problems by a group of individuals who pool their knowledge and process it through social interactions. It has long been recognized that a group of animals, relative to a solitary individual, can do such things as capture large prey more easily and counter predators more effectively. More recently it has been realized that a group of animals, with the right organization, can also solve cognitive problems with an ability that far exceeds the cognitive ability of any single animal. Thus SI is a means whereby a group can overcome some of the cognitive limitations of its members. SI is a rapidly developing topic that has been investigated mainly in social insects (ants, termites, social wasps, and social bees) but has relevance to other animals, including humans. Wherever there is collective decision-making—for example, in democratic elections, committee meetings, and prediction markets—there is a potential for SI. To better understand how a group is optimally structured to possess swarm intelligence, we can examine natural systems that have evolved sophisticated mechanisms for achieving SI. For the past 30 years, I have done so by investigating the mechanisms of SI in honey bee colonies. A colony of honey bees is a model system for studying SI because it solves collectively a variety cognitive problems with impressive skill and because its mechanisms of SI are accessible to experimental analysis. Specifically, one can describe the problem-solving abilities of the whole system (colony), characterize the behavioral properties of the system’s components (bees), trace the routes of information flow between the components (signaling and cuing pathways), and manipulate the components’ behavioral properties and communication processes to test their role in building swarm intelligence. From 1980 to 1995, I directed most of my efforts at understanding how a honey bee colony solves the problem of allocating its foragers across an ever-changing landscape of flower patches so that it gathers its food efficiently, in sufficient quantity, and with the correct nutritional mix. This work is reviewed in detail in my book The Wisdom of the Hive (1995, Harvard University Press). Since 1995, I have concentrated on figuring out how a swarm of honey bees chooses a new home. This problem arises when a colony reproduces and the old queen bee and some ten thousand worker bees leave the parental hive to produce a daughter colony. The emigrating bees settle on a tree branch in a beard-like cluster and then hang there together for several days. During this time, these homeless insects do something truly amazing: they hold a democratic debate to choose their new living quarters. Exactly how they do so is reviewed in my book Honeybee Democracy (2010, Princeton University Press). Remarkably, there are intriguing similarities between how the bees in a swarm and the neurons in a brain are organized so that even though each unit (bee or neuron) has limited information and limited intelligence, the group as a whole makes first-rate collective decisions. For examples, in both systems the process of making a choice consists basically of a competition between the options to accumulate support (bee visits or neuron firings). And in both systems the winner of the competition is determined by which option first accumulates a critical level, or quorum, of support. Consistencies like these indicate that there are general principles of organization for building groups with SI, that is, groups that are far smarter than the smartest individuals in them. My analyses of collective decision-making by honey bee colonies indicate that a group will possess a high level of SI if among the group’s members there is: 1) diversity of knowledge about the available options, 2) open and honest sharing of information about the options, 3) independence in the members’ evaluations of the options, 4) unbiased aggregation of the members’ opinions on the options, and 5) leadership that fosters but does not dominate the discussion. Future explorations will examine when a group benefits from using the organizational mechanisms of SI (distributed data collection, collective information processing, and democratic choice) or when a group is better off being led by high-performing individuals. Further reading: Seeley, T.D. 1995. The Wisdom of the Hive. Harvard University Press. Seeley, T.D. 2010. Honeybee Democracy. Princeton University Press.
principal investigator on
- DISSERTATION RESEARCH: MATRICIDE IN EUSOCIAL WASPS: ADAPTIVEHYPOTHESES AND INFORMATIONAL CONSTRAINTS awarded by DIRECTORATE FOR BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES NSF 2012 - 2014
- GENETIC EVALUATION OF A SURVIVOR STOCK IN THE NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES: THE HONEY BEES OF THE ARNOT FOREST awarded by NORTH AMERICAN POLLINATOR PROTECTION CAMPAIGN 2011 - 2012
area(s) of concentration/expertise
keywords
- animal behavior
- animal communication
- behavioral ecology
- honey bee
- sociobiology
- sustainable forests
submitted impact statement
Publications
individual publications
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academic article
- An oligarchy of nest-site scouts triggers a honeybee swarm’s departure from the hive. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 66:979-987. 2010
- Nest-site defense by competing honey bee swarms during house hunting. Ethology. 116:608-618. 2010
- Promiscuous honeybee queens generate colonies with a critical minority of waggle-dancing foragers. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 64:875-889. 2010
- Sleep deprivation impairs precision of waggle dance signaling in honey bees. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 107:22705-22709. 2010
- Independence and interdependence in collective decision-making: an agent-based model of nest-site choice by honeybee swarms.. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. 364:755-762. 2009
- No intracolonial nepotism during colony fissioning in honeybees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 278:67-72. 2009
- Caste-dependent sleep of worker honey bees. Journal of Experimental Biology. 211:3028-3040. 2008
- Do honeybees have two discrete dances to advertise food sources?. Animal Behaviour. 75:1291-1300. 2008
- Genetic diversity within honeybee colonies increases signal production by waggle-dancing foragers. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. 275:809-816. 2008
- Honeybees do not reject dances for 'implausible' locations--reconsidering the evidence for cognitive maps in insects. Animal Behaviour. 76:261-269. 2008
- Martin Lindauer: prime mover in behavioural physiology and sociobiology. Nature. 456:718. 2008
- Sensory coding of nest-site value in honeybee swarms. Journal of Experimental Biology. 211:3691-3697. 2008
- Swarm cognition in honey bees. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 62:401-414. 2008
- The mechanism of flight guidance in honeybee swarms: subtle guides or streaker bees?. Journal of Experimental Biology. 211:3287-3295. 2008
- The signals initiating the mass exodus of a honey bee swarm from its nest. Animal Behaviour. 76:1943-1952. 2008
- Coordinating a group departure: who produces the piping signals on honeybee swarms?. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 61:1615-1621. 2007
- Genetic diversity in honey bee colonies enhances productivity and fitness. Science. 317:362-364. 2007
- Honey bees of the Arnot Forest: a population of feral colonies persisting with Varroa destructor in the northeastern United States. Apidologie. 38:19-29. 2007
- Hypotheses on the adaptiveness or non-adaptiveness of the directional imprecision in the honey bee's waggle dance (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apis mellifera). Entomologia Generalis. 29:285-298. 2007
- Queen promiscuity lowers disease within honeybee colonies. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 274:67-72. 2007
- The beehive as a honey factory. Bee Craft. 89:15-17. 2007
- Group decision making in honey bee swarms. American Scientist. 94:220-229. 2006
- How does an informed minority of scouts guide a honey bee swarm as it flies to its new home?. Animal Behaviour. 71:161-171. 2006
- Lower disease infections in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies headed by polyandrous versus monandrous queens. Naturwissenschaften. 93:195-199. 2006
- Modeling and analysis of nest-site selection by honey bee swarms: the speed and accuracy trade-off. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 59:427-442. 2006
- The functional organization of resin work in honey bee colonies. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 60:339-349. 2006
- Does plastic comb foundation hinder waggle dance communication? . Apidologie. 36:513-521. 2005
- The brief piping signal of the honey bee: begging call or stop signal?. Ethology. 111:775-784. 2005
- The use of waggle dance information by honey bees throughout their foraging careers. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 59:133-142. 2005
- Group decision making in nest-site selection by honey bees. Apidologie. 35:1-16. 2004
- Levels of selection in a social insect: a review of conflict and cooperation during honey bee (Apis mellifera) queen replacement. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 55:513-523. 2004
- Quorum sensing during nest-site selection by honeybee swarms. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 56:594-601. 2004
- Self-assemblage formation in a social insect: the protective curtain of a honey bee swarm. Insectes Sociaux. 51:317-324. 2004
- The grooming invitation dance of the honey bee. Ethology. 110:1-10. 2004
- How a honey bee colony mustered additional labor for the task of pollen foraging. Apidologie. 33:367-373. 2002
- Parasites, Pathogens, and polyandry in honey bees. American Naturalist. 151:392-396. 1998
- Parasites, pathogens, and polyandry in social Hymenoptera. American Naturalist. 131:602-610. 1988
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article
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book
- Honeybee Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2010
- Honeybee Democracy 2010
- The Wisdom of the Hive: The Social Physiology of Honey Bee Colonies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1996
- Honeybee Ecology: A Study of Adaptation in Social Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1985
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booksection
- Foreword 2006
- Thomas Eisner June 25, 1929 - March 25, 2011 2011
featured in archived article
Teaching
teaching activities
Service
outreach overview
- Conducting research on the use of small-cell combs for the control of the deadly (to honey bees) mite, Varroa destructor. Seeley is committed to applying his knowledge and skills in investigating the biology of honey bees to solving practical problems in beekeeping. He has developed effective bait hives for trapping swarms of bees, found a feral population of honey bees with a stable host-parasite relationship with the parasitic mite Varroa destructor, demonstrated the importance to colony disease resistance and honey production of queens mating with genetically diverse drones, and evaluated the impact of plastic comb foundation on bee communication. He is currently investigating the value of small-cell combs as a non-chemical means of Varroa mite control.
- Providing beekeepers and reporters with information about honey bees, especially what recent research has revealed about their fascinatingly complex societies.
service to the profession
event host
Background
education and training
- Ph.D. in Biology, Harvard University 1978
- A.B. in Chemistry, Dartmouth College 1974
awards and honors
awards and distinctions listing
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- W.W. Eggleston Botany Prize, Dartmouth College, 1972
- F.L. Town Scientific Scholar, Dartmouth College, 1972
- E.B. Hartshorne Chemistry Medal, Dartmouth College, 1974
- Phi Beta Kappa, 1974
- Graduation with Highest Distinction, Dartmouth College, 1974
- National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 1974
- John S. Parker Natural Sciences Fellowship, Harvard University, 1977
- Morse Prize Fellowship, Yale University, 1983
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 1992
- Fellowship, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study - Berlin), 1993
- J.I. Hambleton Award, Eastern Apicultural Society, 1994
- Bee Neocorynurella seeleyi named by Michael S. Engel and Barrett A. Klein , University of Kansas and American Museum of Natural History, 1997
- Gold Medal Award for Best Science Book, Apimondia, 1998. For The Wisdom of the Hive
- Alexander von Humboldt Forschungspreis, 2001
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow, 2001
- Felix Santschi Distinguished Lecture, University of Zürich, 2004
Other
college
- CALS
research keyword
- animal behavior
- animal communication
- behavioral ecology
- honey bee
- sociobiology
- sustainable forests
name prefix
- Professor