The stability of traits conception of the hologenome: An evolutionary account of holobiont individuality

Suárez, Javier

doi:10.1007/s40656-020-00305-2

Cited by 31 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 70 publications

(67 reference statements)

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“…Zilber‐Rosenberg and Rosenberg, on the contrary, considered every microorganism in the host microbiome as a member of the hologenome. Even more radically, some researchers have recently suggested that the fraction of the microbiome that should be considered as part of the individuality of the hologenome must be restricted to the set of functional elements of the microbiome, rather than to its species‐specific composition (Taxis et al ., 2015; Doolittle & Booth, 2017; Lemanceau et al ., 2017; Suárez & Triviño, 2019, 2020; Suárez, 2020).…”

Section: The Nature Of the Holobiont: Biological Individuals Or Ecolomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Secondly, the interactions between the host and its microbes are normally mediated by host traits and the traits of the microbes that compose the host microbiome. The fact that host and microbiome traits mediate these physiological interactions has important biological consequences that make these interactions different from host–inorganic environment interactions, as some researchers have recently emphasized (Sandoval‐Motta, Aldana, & Frank, 2017; Bapteste & Huneman, 2018; Huitzil et al ., 2018; Lloyd & Wade, 2019; Suárez & Triviño, 2019, 2020; Suárez, 2020). We consider that this evidence is solid enough to illustrate that the holobiont is a physiological individual from the perspective of the host.…”

Section: The Macrobe/host Perspective – Holobionts As Individualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the main consequence of our account is that attributions of individuality depend on the perspective adopted, this entails that a conglomerate may be an evolutionary individual from the perspective of some of its elements, but not from the perspective of others. This is because evolutionary dependencies may evolve one‐way, thus affecting only one of the partners but not the other (Lloyd & Wade, 2019; Rudman et al ., 2019; Suárez, 2020; Suárez & Triviño, 2020).…”

Section: The Part‐dependent Account Beyond Physiological Individualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In that account, the host is a reproducer only in virtue of being a holobiont, whereas the microbes of the microbiome are reproducers independently of the holobiont. That view of the reproducer seems to be a good way of interpreting the stability of traits / trait‐recurrence account of the holobiont (Suárez & Triviño, 2019, 2020; Suárez, 2020). According to this account, hologenomic adaptations are traits of the microbiome that are not necessarily bound to any bacterial taxon (they move freely between different bacterial taxa through horizontal gene transfer) and are evolving as a part of an ‘extended’ host genome.…”

Section: The Part‐dependent Account Beyond Physiological Individualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Suárez

Stencel

2020

Biological Reviews

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Given one conception of biological individuality (evolutionary, physiological, etc.), can a holobiont – that is the host + its symbiotic (mutualistic, commensalist and parasitic) microbiome – be simultaneously a biological individual and an ecological community? Herein, we support this possibility by arguing that the notion of biological individuality is part‐dependent. In our account, the individuality of a biological ensemble should not only be determined by the conception of biological individuality in use, but also by the biological characteristics of the part of the ensemble under investigation. In the specific case of holobionts, evaluations of their individuality should be made either host‐relative or microbe‐relative. We support the claim that biological individuality is part‐dependent by drawing upon recent empirical evidence regarding the physiology of hosts and microbes, and the recent characterization of the ‘demibiont’. Our account shows that contemporary disagreements about the individuality of the holobiont derive from an incorrect understanding of the ontology of biological individuality. We show that collaboration between philosophers and biologists can be very fruitful in attempts to solve some contemporary biological debates.

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Section: The Nature Of the Holobiont: Biological Individuals Or Ecolomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Macrobe/host Perspective – Holobionts As Individualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Part‐dependent Account Beyond Physiological Individualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Part‐dependent Account Beyond Physiological Individualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

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

Suárez

Stencel

2020

Biological Reviews

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“…Despite the considerations made by the advocates of the ecological-community view, we suspect that completely disregarding the individual view might be problematic. This is so because the reason why some adaptations have evolved (such as those that are required for dietary, immunological, or reproductive specializations in some animals or plants) would be masked unless the holobiont is taken seriously as the individual that manifests these adaptations (Díaz, 2015;Roughgarden et al, 2017;Suárez, 2020). For example, think of the evolution of herbivory in ruminants.…”

Section: Biological Individuals As Manifestors Of Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is a Hologenomic Adaptation? Emergent Individuality and Inter-Identity in Multispecies Systems

Suárez

Triviño

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Contemporary biological research has suggested that some host-microbiome multispecies systems (referred to as "holobionts") can in certain circumstances evolve as unique biological individual, thus being a unit of selection in evolution. If this is so, then it is arguably the case that some biological adaptations have evolved at the level of the multispecies system, what we call hologenomic adaptations. However, no research has yet been devoted to investigating their nature, or how these adaptations can be distinguished from adaptations at the species-level (genomic adaptations). In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the nature of hologenomic adaptations. By drawing on the case of the evolution of sanguivory diet in vampire bats, we argue that a trait constitutes a hologenomic adaptation when its evolution can only be explained if the holobiont is considered the biological individual that manifests this adaptation, while the bacterial taxa that bear the trait are only opportunistic beneficiaries of it. We then use the philosophical notions of emergence and inter-identity to explain the nature of this form of individuality and argue why it is special of holobionts. Overall, our paper illustrates how the use of philosophical concepts can illuminate scientific discussions, in the trend of what has recently been called metaphysics of biology.

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Modeling the evolution of interconnected processes: It is the song and the singers

Bapteste

Papale

2020

BioEssays

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Recently, Doolittle and Inkpen formulated a thought provoking theory, asserting that evolution by natural selection was responsible for the sideways evolution of two radically different kinds of selective units (also called Domains). The former entities, termed singers, correspond to the usual objects studied by evolutionary biologists (gene, genomes, individuals, species, etc.), whereas the later, termed songs, correspond to reproduced biological and ecosystemic functions, processes, information, and memes. Singers perform songs through selected patterns of interactions, meaning that a wealth of critical phenomena might receive novel evolutionary explanations. However, this theory did not provide an empirical approach to study evolution in such a broadened context. Here, we show that analyzing songs and singers, using patterns of interaction networks as a common ontology for both, offers a novel, actionable, inclusive and mathematical way to analyze not only the reproduction but also the evolution and fitness of biological and ecosystemic interconnected processes.

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The stability of traits conception of the hologenome: An evolutionary account of holobiont individuality

Cited by 31 publications

References 70 publications

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

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

What Is a Hologenomic Adaptation? Emergent Individuality and Inter-Identity in Multispecies Systems

Modeling the evolution of interconnected processes: It is the song and the singers

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