MERLIN SHELDRAKE'S "ENTANGLED LIFE" is just exciting & absolutely fantastic to read!!!
"Some researchers use the term ‘holobiont’ to refer to an assemblage of different organisms that behaves as a unit. The word ‘holobiont’ derives from the Greek word holos, which means whole. Holobionts are the lichens of this world, the more-than-the-sums of their parts. Like ‘symbiosis’ and ‘ecology’, ‘holobiont’ is a word that does useful work. If we only have words that describe neatly bounded autonomous individuals, it is easy to think that they actually exist. The holobiont is not a utopian concept. Collaboration is always a blend of competition and co-operation. There are many instances where the interests of all the symbionts don’t align. A bacterial species in our gut can make up a key part of our digestive system but cause a deadly infection if it gets into our blood. We’re used to this idea.
Perhaps it isn’t so hard for us to relate to lichens after all. This sort of relationship-building enacts one of the oldest evolutionary maxims. If the word ‘cyborg’ — short for cybernetic organism — describes the fusion between a living organism and a piece of technology, then we, like all other life forms, are symborgs, or symbiotic organisms. The authors of a seminal paper on the symbiotic view of life take a clear stance on this point. ‘There have never been individuals, they declare. “We are all lichens.’
#mycology #holobiont #symbiosis #merlinsheldrake #entangledlife #mustread #lichen #recommendation
