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“CLASSICAL BIOLOGY is anchored by the concept of the individual organism. In traditional thinking about evolution, biodiversity, and ecosystems, the concept of “individual organism” occupies a position as fundamental as “gene” was to classical genetics.” https://lnkd.in/ewnQ9Vg View in LinkedIn

NEW WORLD. “Simply put, there is nothing in the prokaryotic realm that corresponds unambiguously to the classical ideas of individual or species.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

NEW INDIVIDUAL THINKING. “Similarly, neither can the multi-cellular eukaryotes notion of an “individual” be applied straightforwardly to prokaryotes. Efforts to squeeze prokaryotes into these multi-cellular eukaryotes notions will produce results that are either metaphorical or misleading or wrong.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

NEW SPECIES THINKING. “The upshot is that the multi-cellular eukaryote “species-as-lineage”—or any phylogeny-based species concept—cannot be applied to prokaryotes because they lack discrete, whole-genome lineages.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

SOURCE OF GRIST. Horizontal gene transfer has been providing the bulk of prokaryotic genetic novelty over time. https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

NOT ABOUT REPRODUCTION. Genes in the prokaryotic world have little to do with reproduction. They are shared liberally by horizontal gene transfers across species. In the eukaryotic world they are exclusively related to reproduction through vertical mendelian inheritance. https://lnkd.in/ewnQ9Vg View in LinkedIn

NO SPECIES BARRIER. “They conclude that inter-specific genetic exchange was a major evolutionary driver and that one species ( S. mitis ) provided the bulk of genetic variation for another species ( S. pneumoniae ). This is not an atypical finding. In prokaryotes, the bulk of new gene families arise via inter-species horizontal gene transfer, not intra-species gene duplication.” https://lnkd.in/ewnQ9Vg View in LinkedIn

VERTICAL VERUS HORIZONTAL WORLDS. “From both a mechanical and a theoretical perspective, the way genetic material is transmitted through organisms over time is fundamentally different in prokaryotes. This leads prokaryotic biologists to use the word “species” in a manner that is decidedly at variance with the concept as applied to multi-cellular eukaryotes.” https://lnkd.in/ewnQ9Vg View in LinkedIn

SPECIALIZED TISSUES. “In addition, Sherwood et al. found relatively greater volume of facial nerve nuclei in the great apes (including humans) than in all other Old World primates, suggesting increased differentiation of mimetic muscles and greater use of facial displays in social, visual communication.” https://lnkd.in/di-WAXE View in LinkedIn

PROKARYOTIC FREEDOMS. “Of course prokaryotes can, and do, exhibit individuality on the cellular level. But, critically, an individual prokaryotic cell is free from the requirement of maintaining genomic identity with neighboring cells and needs only to maintain its basic viability long enough to carry out basic physiological functions, transfer or acquire genes, replicate its genome, and divide.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn