From our oceans to savannas, animals must cope with dynamic environments that are undergoing unprecedented rates of change. How do animals make decisions in the face of such environmental changes, and what are the consequences of those decisions for individuals, populations, ecological communities, and—importantly—interactions with people? Examining these linkages is important for gaining mechanistic insight into how and why animal communities will be affected by global change, and for targeting effective conservation strategies.

An organism’s appearance is the result of evolutionary pressures, and those same pressures apply to the structures organisms build, such as nests. Superorganism nests function as extended phenotypes to perform key biological processes, to survive, grow, and reproduce. Social insects are masters of solving organizational problems because they must coordinate thousands of individuals to accomplish these goals. One such problem is how to construct nests, and then, how to organize resources within that nest. Both, presumably, are optimized to maximize colony performance.