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. 2009 Nov 12;364(1533):3143-55.
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0095.

Beyond society: the evolution of organismality

David C Queller  1 , Joan E Strassmann
Affiliations

Beyond society: the evolution of organismality

David C Queller et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. .

Abstract

The evolution of organismality is a social process. All organisms originated from groups of simpler units that now show high cooperation among the parts and are nearly free of conflicts. We suggest that this near-unanimous cooperation be taken as the defining trait of organisms. Consistency then requires that we accept some unconventional organisms, including some social insect colonies, some microbial groups and viruses, a few sexual partnerships and a number of mutualistic associations. Whether we call these organisms or not, a major task is to explain such cooperative entities, and our survey suggests that many of the traits commonly used to define organisms are not essential. These non-essential traits include physical contiguity, indivisibility, clonality or high relatedness, development from a single cell, short-term and long-term genetic cotransmission, germ-soma separation and membership in the same species.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Cooperation and conflict in groups of cells. Only cellular conflicts are considered here, but within-cell conflicts are discussed in the text.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Cooperation and conflict in groups of multi-cellular individuals. Only conflicts between individuals are considered.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Cooperation and conflict in two-species groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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