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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