NDLI: Understanding Colonial Traits Using Symbiosis Research and Ecosystem Ecology

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Bouchard, Frédéric
Copyright Year	2010
Abstract	E. O. Wilson (1974: 54) describes the problem that social organisms pose: “On what bases do we distinguish the extremely modified members of an invertebrate colony from the organs of a metazoan animal?” This framing of the issue has inspired many to look more closely at how groups of organisms form and behave as emergent individuals. The possible existence of “superorganisms” test our best intuitions about what can count and act as genuine biological individuals and how we should study them. As we will discuss, colonies of certain organisms display many of the properties that we usually reserve only to individual organisms. Although there is good reason to believe that many social insects form genuine emergent biological individuals, the conclusion offered here is of a slightly different sort. I will argue that to understand some social insects’ interactions and the emergent traits they give rise to, it may be helpful to shift our understanding from a community-level approach to an ecosystem-level approach. I will argue that viewing certain insect colonies (termites) as parts of ecosystems allows us to better understand some of the adaptations that have emerged from their evolution.
Starting Page	240
Ending Page	246
Page Count	7
File Format	PDF
ISSN	15555542
Journal	Biological Theory
Volume Number	4
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	15555550
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2015-03-20
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Philosophy of Biology ecology colony emergence biological individuality adaptation social insects Evolutionary Biology Cognitive Psychology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics History and Philosophy of Science

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