Social Coordination and the Superorganism

Abstract

An organized biological unit relatively independent of other units is considered a biological individual. Originally the individual unit must have been considered almost self evident, but the analyses of intraspecific organic units have acquainted us with types of individual entities such as genes, viruses, non-nucleated cells, nucleated cells, cell colonies, multicellular organisms with simple tissues, metamorphic individuals, colonial metazoa, multicellular organisms with organs, metameric individuals, aggregations, sex pairs, families, societies, and finally interspecific groups of various ranks. These ascending hierarchies of integrated units with their special characteristics form the basis of the concept of emergent evolution (Pepper, 1926; Wheeler, 1928a; Morgan, 1933; Wright, 1935).