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Understanding of superorganisms: collective behavior, differentiation and social organization

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Abstract

Most animal species spend their lives in a form based on the unit of “an individual” that is a sophisticated multicellular closed unit with various biological functions. Although the system of an animal individual seems to be perfect, individuals belonging to some animal lineages constitute higher-dimensional units, i.e., colonies, that consist of multiple individuals of the same species, performing divisions of labors among them. Those animals include eusocial insects and colonial animals, and their colonies are also known as “superorganisms”, since a colony behave as a single individual. Recent molecular and genomic/transcriptomic studies have been revealing the regulatory mechanisms underlying the integrated systems of superorganisms although many aspects have yet to be elucidated. In this article, life patterns of superorganisms in some animals are introduced, together with recent research advances on the mechanisms. Furthermore, animal species that show distinctive developmental systems such as abnormal asexual reproduction are also focused, since those developmental patterns are deviated from the concept of normal animal “individuality”. Furthermore, synthetic approaches based on robotics and mathematical modeling, focusing on novel robotic systems that can self-organize various non-trivial macroscopic functionalities as observed in superorganisms, are also discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Misaki Marine Biological Station, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Miura, Kanagawa, 238-0225, Japan

    Toru Miura, Haruka Yamaguchi, Mayuko Nakamura, Daisuke Sato & Kenta Kobayashi

  2. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8566, Japan

    Kohei Oguchi

  3. Department of Evolutionary Studies of Biosystems, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, Shonan Village, Hayama, Miura, Kanagawa, 240-0193, Japan

    Nobuyuki Kutsukake

  4. Department of Aging and Longevity Research, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, 860-0811, Japan

    Kyoko Miura

  5. Center for Metabolic Regulation of Healthy Aging, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, 860-8556, Japan

    Kyoko Miura

  6. Department of Biology, Keio University, Hiyoshi, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 223-8521, Japan

    Yoshinobu Hayashi

  7. Department of Biosciences, School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Kwansei Gakuin University, Sanda, Hyogo, 669-1337, Japan

    Masaru Hojo

  8. Faculty of Science, Academic Assembly, University of Toyama, Gofuku, Toyama, 930-8555, Japan

    Kiyoto Maekawa

  9. NIBB Research Core Facilities, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan

    Shuji Shigenobu

  10. Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8577, Japan

    Takeshi Kano & Akio Ishiguro

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  1. Toru Miura
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  2. Kohei Oguchi
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  3. Haruka Yamaguchi
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Miura, T., Oguchi, K., Yamaguchi, H. et al. Understanding of superorganisms: collective behavior, differentiation and social organization. Artif Life Robotics 27, 204–212 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-022-00754-x

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