scholarly journals Total Umwelten Create Shared Meaning the Emergent Properties of Animal Groups as a Result of Social Signalling

Biosemiotics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-441
Author(s):  
Amelia Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Emergent Properties ◽  
Behavioural Ecology ◽  
Environmental Niche ◽  
Shared Meaning ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Solitary Living ◽  
Group I ◽  
Theories Of Evolution ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Physical Phenomena

AbstractIn this paper, I discuss the concept of ‘shared meaning’, and the relationship between a shared understanding of signs within an animal social group and the Umwelten of individuals within the group. I explore the concept of the ‘Total Umwelt’, as described by Tønnesen, (2003), and use examples from the traditional ethology literature to demonstrate how semiotic principles can not only be applied, but underpin the observations made in animal social biology. Traditionally, neo-Darwinian theories of evolution concentrate on ‘fitness’ or an organism’s capacity to survive and reproduce in its own environmental niche. However, this process also relies on underlying signs and sign processes, which are often over-looked in traditional ethology and behavioural ecology. Biosemiotics, however, places the emphasis on sign process, with signs and signals comprising a semiosphere. Significantly, whilst the semiosphere is formulated as physical phenomena, specifically energetic and material signs which can be detected and transmitted as signals from one individual to another, it is the Umwelten of living organisms which give those signals meaning. Further, two or more Umwelten can merge, giving rise to a ‘Total Umwelt’, which facilitates shared meaning of signs between two or more individuals. Across and within generations, this gives rise to cultural interpretation of signs within populations. I argue this is the fundamental basis for emergent group properties in social species, or indeed in solitary living species where individuals interact to mate, defend territories or resources, or in raising altricial young. I therefore discuss a fusion of traditional behavioural ecology- based theory with semiotics, to examine the phenomenon of ‘shared meaning’ in animal social groups.

Surfing the Waves: Hyper-Fast Computers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vlatko Vedral
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Embedded Computer ◽  
Electronic Computers ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The Right ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
Microsoft Windows ◽  
The Waves ◽  
The Church ◽  
Basic Level

Who hasn’t heard of a computer? In a society entirely dominated by these transistor infested boxes there are probably only a few remaining isolated tribes in the Amazon or around the Kalahari that have not been affected. From organizing our finances, flying a plane, warming up food, controlling our heartbeat (for some), these devices are prevalent in each and every aspect of our society. Whether we are talking about personal computers, mainframe computers, or the embedded computers that we find in our mobile phones or microwave ovens, it is very hard to even imagine a world without them. The term computer, however, means more than just your average Apple Mac or PC. A computer, at its most basic level, is any object that can take instructions, and perform computations based on those instructions. In this sense computation is not limited to a machine or mechanical apparatus; atomic physical phenomena or living organisms are also perfectly valid forms of computers (and in many cases far more powerful than what we can achieve through current models). We’ll discuss alternative models of computation later in this chapter. Computers come in a variety of shapes and sizes and some are not always identifiable as computers at all (would you consider your fridge a computer?). Some are capable of doing millions of calculations in a single second, while others may take long periods of time to do even the most simple calculations. But theoretically, anything one computer is capable of doing, another computer is also capable of doing. Given the right instructions, and sufficient memory, the computer found in your fridge could, for example, simulate Microsoft Windows. The fact that it might be ridiculous to waste time using the embedded computer in your fridge to do anything other than what it was designed for is irrelevant – the point is that it obeys the same model of computation as every other computer and can therefore – by hook or by crook – eventually achieve the same result. This notion is based on what is now called the Church–Turing thesis (dating back to 1936), a hypothesis about the nature of mechanical calculation devices, such as electronic computers.

Evolution and Man

Antiquity ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 31 (124) ◽  
pp. 188-198
Author(s):  
Ronald Singer
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Comparative Anatomy ◽  
Modern Biology ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Morphological Studies ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
Theories Of Evolution ◽  
Post War ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The 19Th Century

The whole of modern biology has been called ‘ a commentary on the Origin of Species ’ (Charles Singer, 1949). In a sense this is true. Following the endeavours to trace the natural histories of the various living organisms, attempts are still in progress to determine the modes, patterns and directive forces of evolution. The end of the 19th and the first quarter of the 20th centuries were characterized by morphological studies in comparative anatomy, the rise of geology and the birth of genetics. The second quarter of this century has witnessed a phenomenal expansion in technical advances leading to critical appraisals of previous concepts and to maturation of new, revolutionary theories based upon seemingly disconnected disciplines-experimental embryology, genetics, physkal anthropology, palaeontology and geology. One of the unacclaimed causes of the correlation of knowledge is the post-war mastery of air travel. The spectacular rise of the ' basic ' biological sciences due to emergent industrial and atomic competitive needs in an era of socio-economic enlightenment is another factor giving rise to the pursuit of such knowledge. In a general sense this is the end of a Darwinian ' cycle ' ; the favourable socio-political situation of the 19th century formed the ' overture ' to the Darwinian theory. Act One saw the development, championing and triumphs of the intellectual interpretations of ' Darwinists '. In Act Two the weaknesses and the vital issues of the application of the theory to various living forms and particularly to Homo sapims were exposed, mainly through the clashes of ' neo-Darwinists ' and ' neo-Lamarckists '. This led to Act Three in which the various sciences (and especially genetics), competing to illustrate and develop alternative theories of evolution, blossomed out, particularly in their search for the mechanisms of the evolutionary processes. In the final scene of this Act the socio-political situation once again formed an important background as the diverse disciplines combine tq unify concepts, and, in fact, to prove evolution.

scholarly journals Solitary bees reduce investment in communication compared with their social relatives

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (25) ◽  
pp. 6569-6574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette Wittwer ◽  
Abraham Hefetz ◽  
Tovit Simon ◽  
Li E. K. Murphy ◽  
Mark A. Elgar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Signal Perception ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Solitary Living ◽  
Social Animals ◽  
Signal Production

Social animals must communicate to define group membership and coordinate social organization. For social insects, communication is predominantly mediated through chemical signals, and as social complexity increases, so does the requirement for a greater diversity of signals. This relationship is particularly true for advanced eusocial insects, including ants, bees, and wasps, whose chemical communication systems have been well-characterized. However, we know surprisingly little about how these communication systems evolve during the transition between solitary and group living. Here, we demonstrate that the sensory systems associated with signal perception are evolutionarily labile. In particular, we show that differences in signal production and perception are tightly associated with changes in social behavior in halictid bees. Our results suggest that social species require a greater investment in communication than their solitary counterparts and that species that have reverted from eusociality to solitary living have repeatedly reduced investment in these potentially costly sensory perception systems.

scholarly journals Evolutionary significance of amino acid permease transporters in 17 plants from Chlorophyta to Angiospermae

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Zhang ◽  
Nana Kong ◽  
Minxuan Cao ◽  
Dongdong Wang ◽  
Yue Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acids ◽  
Amino Acid ◽  
Evolutionary Significance ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Amino Acid Permease ◽  
Group I ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Duplication Events ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Clade 1

Abstract Background: Nitrogen is an indispensable nutrient for plant growth. It is used and transported in the form of amino acids in living organisms. Transporting amino acids to various parts of plants requires relevant transport proteins, such as amino acid permeases (AAPs), which were our focus in this study.Results: We found that 5 AAP genes were present in Chlorophyte species and more AAP genes were predicted in Bryophyta and Lycophytes. Two main groups were defined and group I comprised 5 clades. Our phylogenetic analysis indicated that the origin of clades 2, 3, and 4 is Gymnospermae and that these clades are closely related. The members of clade 1 included Chlorophyta to Gymnospermae. Group II, as a new branch consisting of non-seed plants, is first proposed in our research. Our results also indicated that the AAP family was already present in Chlorophyta and then expanded accompanying the development of vasculature. Concurrently, the AAP family experienced multiple duplication events that promoted the generation of new functions and differentiation of sub-functions.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the AAP gene originated in Chlorophyta, and some non-seed AAP genes clustered in one group. A second group, which contained plants of all evolutionary stages, indicated the evolution of AAPs. These new findings can be used to guide future research.

scholarly journals Diamagnetic levitation enhances growth of liquid bacterial cultures by increasing oxygen availability

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (56) ◽  
pp. 334-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camelia E. Dijkstra ◽  
Oliver J. Larkin ◽  
Paul Anthony ◽  
Michael R. Davey ◽  
Laurence Eaves ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Bacterial Growth ◽  
Liquid Culture ◽  
Superconducting Magnet ◽  
Growth Cycle ◽  
Oxygen Availability ◽  
Bacterial Cultures ◽  
Diamagnetic Levitation ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Physical Phenomena

Diamagnetic levitation is a technique that uses a strong, spatially varying magnetic field to reproduce aspects of weightlessness, on the Earth. We used a superconducting magnet to levitate growing bacterial cultures for up to 18 h, to determine the effect of diamagnetic levitation on all phases of the bacterial growth cycle. We find that diamagnetic levitation increases the rate of population growth in a liquid culture and reduces the sedimentation rate of the cells. Further experiments and microarray gene analysis show that the increase in growth rate is owing to enhanced oxygen availability. We also demonstrate that the magnetic field that levitates the cells also induces convective stirring in the liquid. We present a simple theoretical model, showing how the paramagnetic force on dissolved oxygen can cause convection during the aerobic phases of bacterial growth. We propose that this convection enhances oxygen availability by transporting oxygen around the liquid culture. Since this process results from the strong magnetic field, it is not present in other weightless environments, e.g. in Earth orbit. Hence, these results are of significance and timely to researchers considering the use of diamagnetic levitation to explore effects of weightlessness on living organisms and on physical phenomena.

scholarly journals Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1835) ◽  
pp. 20200324
Author(s):  
Michael D. Greenfield ◽  
Henkjan Honing ◽  
Sonja A. Kotz ◽  
Andrea Ravignani
Keyword(s):  
Convergent Evolution ◽  
Animal Communication ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Emergent Properties ◽  
Behavioural Ecology ◽  
Biological Clocks ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Coupled Oscillator ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Brain

This theme issue assembles current studies that ask how and why precise synchronization and related forms of rhythm interaction are expressed in a wide range of behaviour. The studies cover human activity, with an emphasis on music, and social behaviour, reproduction and communication in non-human animals. In most cases, the temporally aligned rhythms have short—from several seconds down to a fraction of a second—periods and are regulated by central nervous system pacemakers, but interactions involving rhythms that are 24 h or longer and originate in biological clocks also occur. Across this spectrum of activities, species and time scales, empirical work and modelling suggest that synchrony arises from a limited number of coupled-oscillator mechanisms with which individuals mutually entrain. Phylogenetic distribution of these common mechanisms points towards convergent evolution. Studies of animal communication indicate that many synchronous interactions between the signals of neighbouring individuals are specifically favoured by selection. However, synchronous displays are often emergent properties of entrainment between signalling individuals, and in some situations, the very signallers who produce a display might not gain any benefit from the collective timing of their production. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology’.

Internet of Everything

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ergin Dinc ◽  
Murat Kuscu ◽  
Bilgesu Arif Bilgin ◽  
Ozgur Baris Akan
Keyword(s):  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Interconnected Network ◽  
Novel Technologies ◽  
Internet Of Everything ◽  
Light Waves ◽  
Future Research Directions ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
The Universe

In this chapter, the authors put forward the notion of internet of everything (IoE) as an effort to maximally connect our communication infrastructure to the universe, which can itself be regarded as the real IoE, an interconnected network of physical phenomena (i.e., Everything we perceive as independent wholes that persist through time, such as molecules, light, waves, living organisms, and celestial objects, with the purpose of gaining better understanding of its mechanisms and manipulating them to enable novel technologies via a networked sensing, analysis, and actuation approach). The strategy to outline the IoE effort is by dissecting the vast IoE landscape into IoXs according to their various application domains (Xs), for each of which the authors give an up-to-date account of the state-of-the-art in related fields and point out the challenges in contemporary research faces. They also discuss a wide spectrum of challenges and future research directions (e.g., ubiquitous connectivity, security, big data, etc., which are common to many IoXs and penetrate into the IoE effort in general).

A Non-Newtonian Fluid Robot

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Hachmon ◽  
Noam Mamet ◽  
Sapir Sasson ◽  
Tal Barkai ◽  
Nomi Hadar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Newtonian Fluid ◽  
Structural Integrity ◽  
Synthesis Reaction ◽  
Multiple Robots ◽  
Bulk Chemical ◽  
Shear Strains ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
Fundamental Physical

New types of robots inspired by biological principles of assembly, locomotion, and behavior have been recently described. In this work we explored the concept of robots that are based on more fundamental physical phenomena, such as fluid dynamics, and their potential capabilities. We report a robot made entirely of non-Newtonian fluid, driven by shear strains created by spatial patterns of audio waves. We demonstrate various robotic primitives such as locomotion and transport of metallic loads—up to 6-fold heavier than the robot itself—between points on a surface, splitting and merging, shapeshifting, percolation through gratings, and counting to 3. We also utilized interactions between multiple robots carrying chemical loads to drive a bulk chemical synthesis reaction. Free of constraints such as skin or obligatory structural integrity, fluid robots represent a radically different design that could adapt more easily to unfamiliar, hostile, or chaotic environments and carry out tasks that neither living organisms nor conventional machines are capable of.

Redox Reactions in Lipid Membranes as a Model for Primordial Energy-Conserving Systems

1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 437-442
Author(s):  
Salvatore Di Bernardo ◽  
Romana Fato ◽  
Giorgio Lenaz
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Lipid Membranes ◽  
Energy Supply ◽  
Redox Reactions ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Asymmetric Distribution ◽  
Conservation Of Energy ◽  
Asymmetrical Distribution ◽  
Energy Conserving ◽  
Living Organisms

AbstractOne of the peculiar aspects of living systems is the production and conservation of energy. This aspect is provided by specialized organelles, such as the mitochondria and chloroplasts, in developed living organisms. In primordial systems lacking specialized enzymatic complexes the energy supply was probably bound to the generation and maintenance of an asymmetric distribution of charged molecules in compartmentalized systems. On the basis of experimental evidence, we suggest that lipophilic quinones were involved in the generation of this asymmetrical distribution of charges through vectorial redox reactions across lipid membranes.

The Interpretation of Line Profiles

1977 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 191-215
Author(s):  
G.B. Rybicki
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Atomic Physics ◽  
Velocity Fields ◽  
Spectral Lines ◽  
Inhomogeneous Structure ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Line Profiles ◽  
Physical Phenomena

Observations of the shapes and intensities of spectral lines provide a bounty of information about the outer layers of the sun. In order to utilize this information, however, one is faced with a seemingly monumental task. The sun’s chromosphere and corona are extremely complex, and the underlying physical phenomena are far from being understood. Velocity fields, magnetic fields, Inhomogeneous structure, hydromagnetic phenomena – these are some of the complications that must be faced. Other uncertainties involve the atomic physics upon which all of the deductions depend.

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