Year: 2022

LIVING COMPOSITES. "We report here that the zoological sciences are also finding that animals are composites of many species living, developing, and evolving together. The discovery of symbiosis throughout the animal kingdom is fundamentally transforming the classical conception of an insular individuality into one in which interactive relationships among species blurs the boundaries of the organism and obscures the notion of essential identity." View in LinkedIn

CONSEQUENCES. "What would biological science be if symbiosis were seen as the rule, not the exception? What scientific questions would become paramount and how might this change our view of life if intimate cooperation between species were a fundamental feature of evolution? What could “individual selection” mean if all organisms were chimeric, and there were no real monogenetic individuals?" View in LinkedIn

ANATOMIC MOSAICISM. "Anatomically, the individual animal is regarded as a structured whole. Yet, data from PCR show that the cells and bodies of animals are shared with numerous “species” of bacteria and other microbes. In some sponges, nearly 40% of the volume of the organism is comprised of bacteria, which contribute significantly to host metabolism." View in LinkedIn

CORAL SYMBIONTS. "The algal symbiont, Symbiodinium, provides up to 60% of the nutrients needed by its host coral (the term “host” is used here in the classical sense to denote the larger, eukaryotic, multicellular organism in which the “symbiont” resides). When this symbiosis is broken by a prolonged increase in sea-surface temperatures, corals “bleach.” They lose their algal symbionts and die." View in LinkedIn

BOVINE RETHINK. "The entity we call a cow is an organism whose complex ecosystem of gut symbionts—a diverse community of cellulose-digesting bacteria, ciliated protists, and anaerobic fungi—informs its specialized anatomy, defines its plant-digesting physiology, regulates its behaviors, and ultimately determines its evolution." View in LinkedIn

NO ANATOMIC INDIVIDUALITY. "In addition to the mitochondrial vestiges of ancient symbiosis, thousands of bacterial “species” (themselves genetic composites) live in intimate association with our own eukaryotic cells. Estimates that 90% of the cells that comprise our bodies are bacterial belie any simple anatomical understanding of individual identity." View in LinkedIn

MICROBIOME SYMBIONTS. "Metagenomic sequencing has shown that each human gut has entered into a persistent partnership with over 150 species of bacteria, and that the human species maintains about 1000 major bacteria groups in our gut microbiome. The gene set contained by this symbiotic metagenome is about 150 times larger than that of the human eukaryotic genome. And this does not include the symbionts of human airways, skin, mouth, or reproductive orifices." View in LinkedIn

POSTER CHILD MOSAIC. "Mastotermes darwiniensis, a termite of northern Australia, may claim the title of “poster organism” for the chimeric individual. How can a worker termite be considered an individual when it is the hive that is the reproductive unit of the species, and the worker cannot even digest cellulose without its gut symbiont, Mixotricha paradoxa, which is itself a genetic composite of at least five other species?" View in LinkedIn

PERSISTENT SYMBIONTS. "Neither humans, nor any other organism, can be regarded as individuals by anatomical criteria. To capture this complexity, the term “holobiont” has been introduced as the anatomical term that describes the integrated organism comprised of both host elements and persistent populations of symbionts." View in LinkedIn

OBLIGATE DEPENDENCY. "The development of both vertebrates and invertebrates (especially larval and postembryonic development) is predicated on relations with microbes." View in LinkedIn