Preview: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Ma, 744 pp., ISBN-10: 0-674-02207-6, ISBN-13: 978-0-67402207-2, Price: US$ 100.00, € 70.00 Prof. Dr. Deborah M. Gordon, Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford Ca 94305-5020, USA. E-mail: DMGordon@stanford.edu Myrmecol. News 12: 40 (online 10 November 2008) Issn 1994-4136 (print), Issn 1997-3500 (online) Received 2 October 2008; accepted 6 October 2008 An organism's resource use changes over the course of its life cycle, and an ant colony is no exception. Walter Tschinkel has devoted his career to tracing this relationship in the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. In the process he has become a kind of advocate for the fire ant, the species that almost everyone else loves to hate. He opposed the pesticide program intended to eliminate the fire ant in the southeastern US. His opposition has been vindicated by the consequences of that spraying, which by clearing out the competition…