Contextual organismality: Beyond pattern to process in the emergence of organisms
Biologists have taken the concept of organism largely for granted. However, advances in the study of chimerism, symbiosis, bacterial-eukaryote associations, and microbial behavior have prompted a redefinition of organisms as biological entities exhibiting low conflict and high cooperation among thei...
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Published in | Evolution Vol. 70; no. 12; pp. 2669 - 2677 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
01.12.2016
Society for the Study of Evolution Oxford University Press John Wiley and Sons Inc |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Biologists have taken the concept of organism largely for granted. However, advances in the study of chimerism, symbiosis, bacterial-eukaryote associations, and microbial behavior have prompted a redefinition of organisms as biological entities exhibiting low conflict and high cooperation among their parts. This expanded view identifies organisms in evolutionary time. However, the ecological processes, mechanisms, and traits that drive the formation of organisms remain poorly understood. Recognizing that organismality can be context dependent, we advocate elucidating the ecological contexts under which entities do or do not act as organisms. Here we develop a "contextual organismality" framework and provide examples of entities, such as honey bee colonies, tumors, and bacterial swarms, that can act as organisms under specific life history, resource, or other ecological circumstances. We suggest that context dependence may be a stepping stone to the development of increased organismal unification, as the most integrated biological entities generally show little context dependence. Recognizing that organismality is contextual can identify common patterns and testable hypotheses across different entities. The contextual organismality framework can illuminate timeless as well as pressing issues in biology, including topics as disparate as cancer emergence, genomic conflict, evolution of symbiosis, and the role of the microbiota in impacting host phenotype. |
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Bibliography: | istex:9B26190E3980C02E8C3AA2368F3BFD9B3936190B John Templeton Foundation ark:/67375/WNG-2BZCH8KN-W ArticleID:EVO13078 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0014-3820 1558-5646 |
DOI: | 10.1111/evo.13078 |