Biological complexity: more on siphonosphores (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 15, 2020, 19:41 (1683 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You could hardly have a better description of how multicellularity works. All multicellular bodies are collections of cells that clone themselves thousands of times into specialized bodies that string together to work as a team. I have called them cell communities. My pet analogy has always been ant colonies, but maybe the siphonofore is even better. Thank you for this intriguing article.

DAVID: These are simply single celled organisms clumped together, which again you have again exaggerated into one of your woolly hopes about out individual cell intelligence. Stromatolite mats are exactly the same, examples of a degree of simple cell cooperation for simple tasks.

dhw: Do you deny that our own body consists of single cells clumped together into specialized groups which cooperate as teams?

DAVID: Not your view. Our cells are highly specialized for their complex tasks. See the new entry on siphonosphores. They have some interesting specializations as individuals in contributing to the whole.

What is not my view? The new entry confirms what I wrote above:

QUOTE: "Resembling a long piece of string, siphonophores—a group of creatures related to jellyfish and corals—may look like one organism, but they are actually made up of many thousands of individual, specialized clones that come together to form a single entity. […]There are about a dozen different jobs a clone can do in the colony, and each clone is specialized to a particular task…"

DAVID: I've changed my view. More research and this guy is much more of a multicellular organism than bacterial mats, as I first suggested. Another example of an econiche system with strange participants. I accept it as another God-design example.

dhw: So do you or do you not agree that this guy’s body works in the same way as our own bodies: communities of cells with different functions working as a team?

It seems to be an early experimentation in simple multicellularity, by having different organisms work cooperatively. Each individual must reproduce itself slowly over time to continue its contribution.