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THE PROCESS. “Mound building is therefore a two-step expression of superorganismal homeostasis, ψ-homeostasis motivating the rough draft, which is then refined by φ-homeostasis into the fully functional lung.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn

REGIONAL DECISIONS. "Most decisions made by plants about growth and development do seem to involve communication between all parts of the plant, but with prominence in the decision given to meristems local to the signal." http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/92/1/1.full View in LinkedIn

HYDRATION METRICS. “Mound building therefore requires a termite colony to manage a net flow of water through the nest. This in turn implies that the colony must have some cognitive awareness of its own hydration state, and the capability of managing it. Evidently, they are very good at it, because nest moisture is very tightly regulated, maintaining a relative humidity of around 80 % throughout the year in the face of strong seasonal variation in soil moisture and ambient humidity.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn

SIGNAL MOLECULES. "Quite remarkably, the suite of molecules used in signal transduction are entirely similar between nerve cells and plant cells." http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/92/1/1.full View in LinkedIn

WATER CONTROL. “In the course of maintaining a mound, a colony will move about 250 kg dry weight of soil each year to the mound surface from deeper soil horizons. This corresponds to roughly eighty liters of water that must be invested annually to maintain the mound (mound growth will require more). Meanwhile, a generous estimate of the colony’s reserves of liquid water amounts to about fifty liters at any one time.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn

PREDICTIVE MODELING. "When young trees were provided with water only once a year, over the next several years they learned to predict when the water would be supplied and synchronised their growth with its appearance. Again this an obvious case of predictive modeling followed by fitness changes in growth and development." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-005-0014-9 View in LinkedIn

AVOIDING COMPETITION. "Currently three avoidance responses to this situation have been observed. (1) New branches grow away from the direction of higher FR/R. (2) The whole plant moves away as in the Stilt Palm by differential growth of prop roots toward the light. (3) Apical dominance is increased, the main stem elongates more quickly with longer spaces between leaves which are larger in surface area with longer petioles and fewer more vertically erect branches." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-005-0014-9 View in LinkedIn