superorganism
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See also: super organism
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Noun
superorganism (plural superorganisms)
- (biology) A social colony of individuals who, through division of labour, effective communication and self-organization, form a highly connected community that functions as if it were a single organism.
- 1991, James Lovelock, Healing Gaia, New York: Harmony Books, →ISBN, page 64:
- A superorganism is an ensemble of living and non-living matter, which acts as a single self-regulating system. […] Gaia is the largest and most complex superorganism we know.
- 1993, Gregory Stock, Metaman: the Merging of Humans and Machines Into a Global Superorganism, New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 43:
- To grasp why Metaman—our strange amalgam of concrete, humans, computer chips, and various plants and animals—is a superorganism rather than merely an elaborate “social grouping” of humans, look at another, far simpler grouping of organisms—a termite colony.
Usage notes
- The less common noun supraorganism is mostly synonymous.
Translations
social colony
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Further reading
superorganism on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
