BIOCARTELS

BIOCARTELS

Donald A. Windsor

A biocartel is a collaboration of host and symbiont species.  It can be expressed in two major orientations:  As a single host species plus all of its symbiont species, or as a symbiont species plus all of its host species.  "Symbiont" is used in its broadest sense of living together; it includes parasites, mutuals, commensals, and pollinators.

Our biosphere is held together by a complicated matrix of biocartels.

A cartel is a group acting as a unit toward a common goal (1).  Cartels are usually formed for economic reasons, such as price fixing or market manipulation.  Our most famous cartel is OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.  Members band together to regulate the global price of oil. 

A biocartel is a group of species acting as a unit toward the common goal of survival.  I conceptualize symbionts and their hosts as a unit.  While this may seem obvious for pollinators, it is not at all obvious for parasites.  After all, parasites inflict harm upon their individual hosts, by definition. However, at the species level, they help the host species survive by regulating its population levels.  When competition, predation, and catastrophe fail, disease steps in.  This conclusion is mine and is based on my own observations. 

The biocartel concept is an important paradigm shift because it represents a more realistic unit of evolution than does the species alone.  A species does not evolve by itself in a vacuum, but rather in a highly competitive arms race with its parasites and other symbionts.  Both the host species and its symbionts coevolve as a unit within and among their ecosystems.

I first coined the term "biocartel" in 1997 (2).  It grew out of my fascination with both the stock market and with parasites.  Leigh Van Valen, the editor of Evolution Theory, allowed me to publish it, but within 200 words.  I am eternally grateful to him, because I have not been able to get a thorough description on biocartels published in any other mainstream journals.

I published my basic biocartel tutorial as a set of three articles in a journal that I founded.

Windsor, D.A.  Biocartels -- units of ecology and evolution based on host-symbiont interrelationships.  Archives of the SciAesthetics Institute 2000 August; 1(1): 4-12.

Windsor, D.A.  Biocartel of the American Robin (Turdus migratorius).  Archives of the SciAesthetics Institute 2000 August; 1(1): 13-18.

Windsor, D.A.  Biocartel of the European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris).  Archives of the SciAesthetics Institute 2000 August; 1(1): 19-28.

A critique was then published by John O. Corliss.

Corliss, J.O.  A commentary on D.A. Windsor's recent heuristic biocartel concept.  Archives of the SciAesthetics Institute 2000 December; 1(2): 79-85.

Archives of the SciAesthetics Institute is not readily available, but I can provide copies for the breakeven price of $8.00, which includes shipping.  Send to me at PO Box 604, Norwich NY 13815.

Fortunately, biocartels have been cited in the mainstream literature (3,4,5,6).

My intent now is to publish a book on biocartels and try to promote it on my blog.

The two examples that best illustrate the vast extent of biocartels are of the American Robin (Turdus migratoris) and of the European Starling (Sternus vulgaris).  The biocartels of these two host species were compiled by doing old-fashioned literature searches and compiling lists of all the parasite species reported for each host species.  The high numbers surprised me. 

American Robin has 94 parasite species.
European Starling has 175 parasite species.

To investigate a mammal, I started on the American bison and, so far, found 52 parasite species.  There are probably many more.

I then started to do a biocartel of the nematode parasite Trichinella spiralis.  However, this species has been split into 6 separate species:  T. spiralis, T.britovi, T. murrelli, T. nativa, T. nelsoni, and T. pseudospiralis.  Because it was not then clear which of the newer species appeared in the older literature, I used the genus as the parasite and found at least 101 host species.

The obvious fact that emerges from just these four studies is that the numbers are astounding.  If one biocartel has 100 species, then just imagine how many species are involved in a single acre of forest? 

Many questions are begging to be answered.  Is the overlap of symbiont species greater in biocartels of closely related host species?  In unrelated host species that share the same ecological areas?

The big difficulty in compiling biocartels is that the literature does not contain adequate reports of symbionts for many host species, usually just of those species important to humans.

References cited:

1.  Anon.  Cartel.  In: Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language.  Avenel, NJ:  Gramercy Books.  1989.  Page 227, column 2, meaning 3.

2.  Windsor, D.A.  The basic unit of evolution is the host-symbiont "biocartel". Evolutionary Theory 1997 Aug; 11(4): 275.

3.  Corliss, J.O.  Have the protozoa been overlooked?  BioScience 2001 June; 51(6): 424-425.

4.  Corliss, J.O.  Biodiversity and biocomplexity of the protists and an overview of their significant roles in maintenance of our biosphere.  Acta Protozoologica  2002; 41: 199-219.

5.  Corliss, J.O.  Why the world needs protists.  Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology.  2004; 51(1): 8-22.

6.  Vannier-Santos, M.A. ; Lenzi, H.L.  Parasites or cohabitants: cruel omnipresent usurpers or creative "eminences grises"?  Journal of Parasitology Research 2011: 1-19.

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My Earliest Lesson On Proper Documentation

Donald A. Windsor

Documentation is the supporting of a statement with a document.  I recently published a tutorial about it.

     Windsor, Donald A.  Bulletproof Documentation of Local History.
     Self published. 2009. 40 pages.

My earliest lesson in documentation occurred in the third or fourth grade in a Catholic school.  A naughty joke was circulating among the boys.  It started with the question, "Who was the strongest man in the Bible?"  Most persons would name Sampson.  We would then tell them, "No.  It was Moses."  "Moses?", they would respond with disbelief.  "How do you figure Moses was stronger than Sampson?"

We would answer (with impish giggles) "It says in the Bible that Moses tied his ass to a tree and then walked ten miles." 

One day, the nun who taught us, overheard me conducting such a conversation and said to me, "Gosh, I read the Bible but I don't remember reading that Moses did what you  described.  Perhaps you would show me the exact passage, you know, chapter and verse."

Well, I looked through the early books of the Bible and could not find such a passage.  After about a week, it became very clear to me that the Bible did not say that Moses tied his ass to a tree and walked.

When the nun confronted me requesting a progress report, I had to admit my failure.  She then admonished me and demanded that I stay after school and write a thousand times, "I must not misquote the Bible."

After a few hundred, she interrupted me and asked what I learned from my experience with shoddy documentation.  I responded with suitable contrition, "I must not misquote the Bible."  She was pleased and released me from my sentence (actually, hundreds of sentences).

The lesson stuck with me.  Everything anyone says, other than about their own personal experiences, must be documented.  This is especially true in local history, where so many folks expound on events that occurred long before they were even born.  They got their information someplace.  So tell the reader their sources.  Document it!

Losing My Mind

Donald A. Windsor

I used to wonder; when people lose their minds -- how would they know?

The famous statement by Rene' Descartes, "I think, therefore I am", seems to apply as: Since I can no longer think, therefore, I am not.

But, it does not seem to work that way.  The thinking process remains functional (or so I think).  It is the storehouse of facts that disappear.  I reach for the name of someone or something, and it is simply not there.  It is as if I reached into my refrigerator for a bottle of milk and, to my surprise, did not find it.  Yet, I am sure I just bought one.

then, sometimes, often just after a few minutes, the fact appears, again to my surprise.  More puzzling is when it takes several days.  What goes on during this time?  Are my facts so buried in informational clutter, that it takes that long for my mind to find them?  Or does my brain lapse into a slow-motion mode?  I am 77 years old; have I accumulated too many facts for my inadequate mind to file and retrieve?

Facts and names disappear first.  Then the concepts disintegrate.  Mathematical operations seemed so logical when I first learned them; I never thought I would ever lose them.  But it has already happened.  Thus, some of my basic thought process has been eroded.

However, often to my astonishment, I am able to open a textbook for the first time in decades and go right to the place where what I am looking for is located.  Thus, my memory for the place I learned something persists longer than the memory of the thing itself.  This is why I love souvenirs; they help me to remember.  Souvenirs are my outsourced memory. 

Saying Nothing

Donald A. Windsor

As a scientist, I try to describe reality.

As a poet, I try to describe my reactions toward reality.

Sometimes reality baffles me, because it appears to be full of meaning -- and yet, I dread reality because it may actually be devoid of meaning. 

Humanity has developed marvelous languages to describe reality and everything about it.  But, if reality has no meaning, then everything based on reality will be meaningless.

Inspired by that gloomy conclusion, I have been trying to write poems that sound meaningful, but mean nothing.

Here is an example of a poem which sounds as if it is delivering a meaningful message -- but says nothing.  It was written on 15 September 1958, 53 years ago,  and appears in my book:

          From the Green Shingle to the Romine Ailanthus. 
          New York, NY: Vantage.  1969.  Page 11.

The Infusion of Sublimity

What dastardly whim of pernicious vigor
Would so maliciously deign to enthrall
The copious magnanimity of some futile concretion
So as to thwart the immutable misdirection
That eternally remains so gruesomely entrenched
In the very bowels of the unyielded transcendency
Which we so cautiously and audaciously refer to as
The "inter-periodical caprice of martyred altruism"?

Is it in search of this alleged degree of parsimonious vigor
That prompts me to plunge into the strange abyss of mirth
And to leave the hallowed crypt of sacrosanct alacrity?

For herein lies the scramble of truth coalesced
With the shameful usurping of righteous marvels,
Purified from the common pillar
And rectified by the incandescent mystery
That no forced exigency can dare to ever approach.

The result will, therefore,
Be entangled with the minute fragments of glee
And saturated with moribund towers of fascination.

This, unfortunately, cannot be helped,
For the entwining labyrinth can never hope
To exist devoid of its mosaic tones
Or its intrinsic chaos.

The only solution to the ineffable drama before us
Is then to be located where it never was,
Because the misdirection can thereby assume new grandeur
And will promptly align itself to the new shreds
Of chronological debris so evenly distributed
Among the weary, but loyal, transits.

But this is not a solution!
It is only the unruffled dogma of irony
Coupled with the crucial pangs of profundity.

A solution will, however, be sought --
Not by problematical speculation into some unknown realm
Or by some mystic reaction --
No, but by the clear, precise method of manufacture
Wherein the very horizon of frivolity
Can be hopelessly incorporated
Into some equally fantastic structure
Of shapeless spindles and revolving forms,
Cemented together only by the multifarious canon of ecstasy!

If this is approved,
The reign of subjectivity will crumble Beneath the couch of agony
And the vestigial removal of shadow
Will allow the inevitable permeation of dichotomous tactility.

Therefore, let us expedite the rostrum of dubious magnitude
And we will have stumbled upon the continued success
Of the forgotten treasure we never knew.

Hansman's Mill in Smithville Flats

This is a test to see if I can insert a photo.

Yes.   It worked.   These photos were taken on 15 April 2011.

MY AUTO-BIBLIOGRAPHY

                                           BLOG # 7

     My auto-bibliography was published in February 2011.  It cites my 781 publications in 91 different sources (journals, books, magazines, newspapers, and newsletters).

      Windsor, Donald A.     Publications of Donald A. Windsor.  A Comprehensive Auto-Bibliography     1959 - 2010.     Norwich, NY: Auto-published.  2011 February.  96 pages. 

     In my professional career as an information scientist, I noticed that comprehensive bibliographies have properties that resemble those found in taxonomic classifications and, to some extent, in the partition of integers.  So now I am using my auto-bibliography to study those properties. 

     I am currently using various probability models, driven by Monte-Carlo generators, to see if I can simulate my auto-bibliography.  One of the questions I am asking is, how random was my life?

     As a side issue, my auto-bibliography becomes a dandy way to test the effectiveness of online search engines, such as Google.  When I Google myself, I get hits, but nowhere near as many as cited in my auto-bibliography.  More troubling is that some of my most important publications do not appear on Google search results.  Plus, many hits are for authors with the same surnames, as well as numerous duplicates.  All of which confound the situation.

     My approach is based on analytical chemistry.  Here is an illustrative example.  An assay for copper can be tested or standardized by spiking copper-less samples with known amounts of copper.  The assay should detect those amounts.  If it does not, something is wrong.

     My auto-bibliography is the complete list of my publications.  Ideal search engines should detect all, or almost all, of them.  They do not, so something is wrong.  Many researchers think that all they have to do to search the literature is run a Google search.  They are woefully misguided.
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