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Biological individuality: the case of biofilms

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Abstract

This paper examines David Hull’s and Peter Godfrey-Smith’s accounts of biological individuality using the case of biofilms. Biofilms fail standard criteria for individuality, such as having reproductive bottlenecks and forming parent-offspring lineages. Nevertheless, biofilms are good candidates for individuals. The nature of biofilms shows that Godfrey-Smith’s account of individuality, with its reliance on reproduction, is too restrictive. Hull’s interactor notion of individuality better captures biofilms, and we argue that it offers a better account of biological individuality. However, Hull’s notion of interactor needs more precision. We suggest some ways to make Hull’s notion of interactor and his account of individuality more precise. Generally, we maintain that biofilms are a good test case for theories of individuality, and a careful examination of biofilms furthers our understanding of biological individuality.

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Notes

  1. Though we often refer to the members of a biofilm as bacteria or bacterial cells, it should be noted that some biofilms consist of non bacterial microorganisms.

  2. Here our work overlaps with the work of Dupré and O’Malley (2009). They suggest that “life…is typically found at the collaborate intersections of many lineages.” Biofilms are an excellent example of this.

  3. Here are two philosophical tools that help distinguish individuals from non-individuals. Reichenbach’s notion of screening off helps determine whether an outcome is caused by an interaction among the parts of an individual or is the result of the aggregated effect of independent entities. If the interaction of entities screens off the aggregated effect of independent entities, then an outcome is due to interaction within an individual. See Salmon (1978, 1984) and Brandon (1990) for discussions of screening off. Another useful tool for distinguishing outcomes due to aggregation versus outcomes due to interaction is Salmon’s (1978, 1984) mark transmission criterion. Using Salmon’s car and shadow example, if a car is dented, that car will remain dented until it is fixed. The dent is a mark transmitted by the car, and the car is an individual or a process. If the shadow of the car cast on a road’s railing changes because one segment of the railing is broken, that change (i.e., mark) is not transmitted to future instances of the shadow when the railing is not broken. Pseudo-processes do not transmit marks. The car’s shadow over time is an aggregate of the car blocking the sun at different moments. It is a pseudo-process.

  4. The idea that individuation can only occur when we specify the type of individual being individuated is a central tenet of the sortal view of identity (Wiggins 2001).

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Acknowledgments

We thank Matt Haber, Maureen O’Malley, Peter Godfrey-Smith, and three referees for this journal for their helpful suggestions. Thanks to Ford Doolittle and Conor Meehan for helping us learn about biofilms and microbial consortia. We also thank the participants at the Individuals Across the Sciences conference (Paris 2012) for their feedback and stimulating discussion. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided financial support for this research.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Avenue, NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Marc Ereshefsky & Makmiller Pedroso

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  1. Marc Ereshefsky
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  2. Makmiller Pedroso
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Correspondence to Marc Ereshefsky.

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Ereshefsky, M., Pedroso, M. Biological individuality: the case of biofilms. Biol Philos 28, 331–349 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-012-9340-4

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