Can't see the colony for the bees: behavioural perspectives of biological individuality

Abstract

The question 'what is an individual' does not often arise in studies within the field of behavioural ecology. Generally behavioural ecologists do not think about what makes an individual because they tend to use intuitive working concepts of individuality. Rarely do they explicitly mention how individuality affects their experimental design and interpretation of results. By contrast, the concept of individuality continues to intrigue philosophers of biology. It is interesting that while philosophers of biology debate definitions of individuality, biologists generally use the concept of individuality every day without much thought. Here we review the philosophical approaches to defining biological individuality, and illustrate how the biological individuality concepts used by biologists are affected by their study question and choice of organism. We clarify the behavioural perspective of biological individuality by introducing the concept of the behavioural individual. The notion of the behavioural individual is particularly interesting when explored in less-conventional study organisms. By including less-conventional organisms, it becomes clear why the concept of biological individuality is usually intuitive in behavioural ecology.

Individual differences, uniqueness, and individuality in behavioural ecology

“…In this case, phenotypic uniqueness is used to individuate an individual over time. In addition, in less conventional organisms like slime moulds, eusocial insects, and perhaps even some plants, behavioural differences can be instrumental for distinguishing individuals at one time point (Smith-Ferguson & Beekman, 2019). Ecological differences may play a similar role, such as identifying an individual by its territory or its position in a social hierarchy, though in most cases this seems less reliable than phenotypic identification.…”

“…For instance, researchers are beginning to design experiments with a greater number of smaller treatment and control groups and to split data into more differentiated cohorts for analysis, approaches that are also becoming common in biomedical studies (Nicholls et al, 2014). The concept of individuality as uniqueness may also affect decisions about what counts as a replicate individual for experimentation (Smith-Ferguson & Beekman, 2019).…”

Neurobiological tensegrity: The basis for understanding inter-individual variations in task performance?

“…The question of what constitutes 'individuality' is still the subject of reflection (Pradeu, 2016), as well as how individuality should be conceptualized to address different behavioral questions (Love, 2015). Some conceptualizations of biological individuality are restricted to the performer, but here we focus on those that conceive individual behavior as inseparable from the environmental performance circumstances (Smith-Ferguson & Beekman, 2019). As mentioned, tensegrity is mostly a functional concept (Turvey, 2007), but structure and function are complementary (Kelso & Engstrom, 2006), in that the structure of initial conditions (with specific reference to organismic constraints) informs functional behaviors.…”

A part‐dependent account of biological individuality: why holobionts are individuals and ecosystems simultaneously

“…Discerning what counts as a biological individual constitutes a central problem in the agenda of biologists (Pepper & Herron, 2008; Gilbert et al ., 2012; Rees, Bosch, & Douglas, 2018), and philosophers (Godfrey‐Smith, 2013; Clarke, 2013; Kovaka, 2015; Smith, 2017; Stencel & Proszewska, 2018; Suárez, 2018; Wilson & Barker, 2019; cf . Section II in Smith‐Ferguson & Beekman, 2019). Following Pradeu (2016 b , p. 762), we also believe that “[i]n general, asking what a biological individual is means asking what constitutes a countable, relatively well‐delineated, and cohesive unit in the living world”.…”