email
print
Superorganism
From CopperWiki
Superorganism is an organism consisting of many organisms. Usually this is usually meant to be a social unit of eusocial animals with highly specialized division of labor. Individuals are not able to survive in such units for prolonged periods of time. The standard example of a superorganism is an ant colony, but there are many others -- termite mounds, bee hives, wasp nests, coral reefs, fungal colonies, groves of genetically identical trees, etc.
Contents |
[edit] Why should I be aware of this?
- Ants are the best-known example of such a superorganism. Each ant works to ensure the reproductive success of the colony as a whole. Some scientists think the superorganism concept can be used to explain some aspects of human evolution.
- Global society can be seen as becoming more like a superorganism as technology and globalization advance.
[edit] All about superorganism
The technical definition of a superorganism is "a collection of agents which can act in concert to produce phenomena governed by the collective," phenomena being any activity "the hive wants" such as ants collecting food or bees choosing a new nest site. The Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock has also suggested that the biosphere can be considered as a superorganism.
The superorganism is a tightly connected community that functions as a single organism It comprises a social colony of individuals who function through a sophisticated division of labor, a highly effective communications network and a process of self-organization.Fewer than two dozen superorganism species are known to exist: social insects—the colonial bees, wasps, ants and termites—and humans. A honeybee colony, for example, is as much an individual as a single bee.
[edit] Likened to human society
The system of “distributed intelligence" in superorganisms has many implications for military and management applications, and is being actively researched. In this system many individual agents with limited intelligence and information pool resources to accomplish a goal beyond the capabilities of the individuals.
The concept of a superorganism has been likened to human society and has generated a lot of interest from science fiction writers such as H.G.Wells to theologians like Pierre Theillard de Chardin. Some individuals consider all life forms, including humans to be the parts of a planet-sized superorganism. All of these have in common that they are highly complex, that each cell of the superorganism is an organism in and of itself.
[edit] 90 degrees
Many biologists dispute the concept of superorganism is in dispute, as they feel that for a social unit to be considered an organism by itself, the individuals should be in permanent physical connection to each other. Its evolution should not be governed by the individual but by the whole society. While it's generally accepted that the society of eusocial animals is a unit of natural selection to at least some extent, most evolutionary scientists believe that the individuals are still the primary units of selection.
