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Holobiont
A holobiont is an assemblage of a Host (biology), host and the many other species living in or around it, which together form a discrete ecological unit through symbiosis, though there is controversy over this discreteness. The components of a holobiont are individual species or wikt:biont, bionts, while the combined genome of all bionts is the Hologenome theory of evolution, hologenome. The holobiont concept was initially introduced by the German theoretical biologist :de:Adolf Meyer-Abich, Adolf Meyer-Abich in 1943, and then apparently independently by Lynn Margulis, Dr. Lynn Margulis in her 1991 book ''Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation''. The concept has evolved since the original formulations. Holobionts include the Host (biology), host, virome, microbiome, and any other organisms which contribute in some way to the functioning of the whole. Well-studied holobionts include Coral#Holobiont, reef-building corals and humans. Overview A holobiont is a collection of ...
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Hologenome Theory Of Evolution
The hologenome theory of evolution recasts the individual animal or plant (and other multicellular organisms) as a community or a " holobiont" – the host plus all of its symbiotic microbes. Consequently, the collective genomes of the holobiont form a "hologenome". Holobionts and hologenomes are structural entities that replace misnomers in the context of host-microbiota symbioses such as superorganism (i.e., an integrated social unit composed of conspecifics), organ, and metagenome. Variation in the hologenome may encode phenotypic plasticity of the holobiont and can be subject to evolutionary changes caused by selection and drift, if portions of the hologenome are transmitted between generations with reasonable fidelity. One of the important outcomes of recasting the individual as a holobiont subject to evolutionary forces is that genetic variation in the hologenome can be brought about by changes in the host genome and also by changes in the microbiome, including new acquisit ...
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Superorganism
A superorganism, or supraorganism, is a group of synergetically interacting organisms of the same species. A community of synergetically interacting organisms of different species is called a '' holobiont''. Concept The term superorganism is used most often to describe a social unit of eusocial animals in which division of labour is highly specialised and individuals cannot survive by themselves for extended periods. Ants are the best-known example of such a superorganism. A superorganism can be defined as "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 and avoiding predators, or bees choosing a new nest site. In challenging environments, micro organisms collaborate and evolve together to process unlikely sources of nutrients such as methane. This process called syntrophy ("eating together") might be linked to the evolution of eukaryote cells and in ...
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Microbiome Relationships Mirror Host Evolution
A microbiome () is the community of microorganisms that can usually be found living together in any given habitat. It was defined more precisely in 1988 by Whipps ''et al.'' as "a characteristic microbial community occupying a reasonably well-defined habitat which has distinct physio-chemical properties. The term thus not only refers to the microorganisms involved but also encompasses their theatre of activity". In 2020, an international panel of experts published the outcome of their discussions on the definition of the microbiome. They proposed a definition of the microbiome based on a revival of the "compact, clear, and comprehensive description of the term" as originally provided by Whipps ''et al.'', but supplemented with two explanatory paragraphs, the first pronouncing the dynamic character of the microbiome, and the second clearly separating the term ''microbiota'' from the term ''microbiome''. Modified text was copied from this source, which is available under Creati ...
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Coral
Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral reef, reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. A coral "group" is a colony of very many cloning, genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in height. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening. Each polyp excretes an exoskeleton near the base. Over many generations, the colony thus creates a skeleton characteristic of the species which can measure up to several meters in size. Individual colonies grow by asexual reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning: polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously overnight, often around a full moon. Fertilized eggs form ...
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Ant Colony
An ant colony is a population of ants, typically from a single species, capable of maintaining their complete lifecycle. Ant colonies are eusocial, communal, and efficiently organized and are very much like those found in other social Hymenoptera, though the various groups of these developed sociality independently through convergent evolution. The typical colony consists of one or more egg-laying queens, numerous sterile females (workers, soldiers) and, seasonally, many winged sexual males and females. In order to establish new colonies, ants undertake flights that occur at species-characteristic times of the day. Swarms of the winged sexuals (known as alates) depart the nest in search of other nests. The males die shortly thereafter, along with most of the females. A small percentage of the females survive to initiate new nests. Etymology The term "ant colony" refers to a population of workers, reproductive individuals, and brood that live together, cooperate, and treat ...
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Holism
Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts. Julian Tudor Hart (2010''The Political Economy of Health Care''pp.106, 258 The aphorism "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts", typically attributed to Aristotle, is often given as a summary of this proposal. The concept of holism can inform the methodology for a broad array of scientific fields and lifestyle practices. When applications of holism are said to reveal properties of a whole system beyond those of its parts, these qualities are referred to as emergent properties of that system. Holism in all contexts is often placed in opposition to reductionism, a dominant notion in the philosophy of science that systems containing parts contain no unique properties beyond those parts. Proponents of holism consider the search for emergent properties within systems to be demonstrative of their perspective. Background The term "holism" was coined ...
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Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelianism, Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science. Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira (ancient city), Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical Greece, Classical period. His father, Nicomachus (father of Aristotle), Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At around eighteen years old, he joined Plato's Platonic Academy, Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty seven (). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request ...
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CC-BY Icon
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that the author has created. CC provides an author flexibility (for example, they might choose to allow only non-commercial uses of a given work) and protects the people who use or redistribute an author's work from concerns of copyright infringement as long as they abide by the conditions that are specified in the license by which the author distributes the work. There are several types of Creative Commons licenses. Each license differs by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002, by Creative Commons, a U.S. non-profit corporation founded in 2001. There have also been five versions of the suite of licenses, numbered 1.0 through 4.0. Released in November ...
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Konstantin Mereschkowski
Konstantin Sergeevich Mereschkowski ( rus, Константи́н Серге́евич Мережко́вский, p=mʲɪrʲɪˈʂkofskʲɪj; – 9 January 1921) was a Russian biologist and botanist, active mainly around Kazan, whose research on lichens led him to propose the theory of symbiogenesis – that larger, more complex cells (of eukaryotes) evolved from the symbiotic relationship between less complex ones. He presented this theory in 1910, in his work, ''The Theory of Two Plasms as the Basis of Symbiogenesis, a New Study of the Origins of Organisms'', although the fundamentals of the idea had already appeared in his earlier 1905 work, ''The nature and origins of chromatophores in the plant kingdom''. Biography Early life Konstantin was born in Saint Petersburg, one of six sons and three daughters in the Mereschkowski family. His father Sergey Ivanovich served as a senior official in several Russian local governors' cabinets (including that of I.D. Talyzin ...
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Endosymbiosis Theory
Symbiogenesis (endosymbiotic theory, or serial endosymbiotic theory) is the leading evolutionary theory of the origin of eukaryotic cells from prokaryotic organisms. The theory holds that mitochondria, plastids such as chloroplasts, and possibly other organelles of eukaryotic cells are descended from formerly free-living prokaryotes (more closely related to the Bacteria than to the Archaea) taken one inside the other in endosymbiont, endosymbiosis. Mitochondria appear to be phylogeny, phylogenetically related to Rickettsiales bacteria, while chloroplasts are thought to be related to cyanobacteria. The idea that chloroplasts were originally independent organisms that merged into a symbiotic relationship with other one-celled organisms dates back to the 19th century, when it was espoused by researchers such as Andreas Schimper. The endosymbiotic theory was articulated in 1905 and 1910 by the Russian botanist Konstantin Mereschkowski, and advanced and substantiated with microbiolog ...
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Ivan Wallin
Ivan Emanuel Wallin (22 January 1883 – 6 March 1969) was an American biologist who made the first experimental works on endosymbiotic theory. Nicknamed the "Mitochondria Man", he claimed that mitochondria, which are cell organelles, were once independent bacteria, as supported by his comparative studies and culture of isolated mitochondria. From 1922, he published a series of papers titled "On the nature of mitochondria" in the ''American Journal of Anatomy'' which became the experimental foundations of his claims. He was the first person to specifically postulate that eukaryotic organelles originated from bacteria, and that symbiosis is a major force in speciation, creation of new species. Wallin was Professor of Anatomy at the University of Colorado Medical School. He was noted for his eccentric life in academia, such as his preference for exclusively practical demonstration rather than lecturing, his frequent parties for students and an annual Christmas glögg party. Biogra ...
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