Talk:Colony (biology)

"individual organisms from a colony can ... survive on their own"???
Not true in the case of Siphonophora. The zooids cannot survive on their own. Either Siphonophora are not colonial, or that phrase is innacurate. 66.92.53.49 19:49, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I was going to make the same remark. It's even the case with the Portuguese man o' war, mentioned in its article. It's not even a good distinction from individual cells from macroorganisms deemed not colonial; many can reproduce by fragmentation (even organisms as sophisticated as goats and humans, in the early embryonary stages), losing some part, even if the cells are not specialized for reproduction. It seems that there's a continuum between individual cells, colonial unicellular organisms and multicellular organisms, possibly the classification is somewhat fuzzy.--Extremophile (talk) 04:19, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This problem has remained unresolved for seven years; this article and Portuguese man o' war still appear to contradict each other. I've added the expert-subject template to both of them. Joriki (talk) 12:11, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Levels of biological organization
Clearly the colony is greater than the organism or individual but smaller than the population itself smaller than the community... but other biological organizations exist bigger than a colony and smaller than population, for all the biological levels of organization the net lacks any proper detail and wikipedia does not even mentions the existance of this, there is no list... Someone with proper knowledge must make one please. -Herle King 200.106.96.129 10:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)).

colonial organism
a colony of single-celled organisms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.1.53.40 (talk) 15:00, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

What's the definition?
With regard to the comment of 14-July-2009 above, defining "colonial organism" by just giving a phrase ("a colony of single-celled organisms") that is synonymous to the phrase being defined is, well, probably it was just meant as a joke, so probably I should not respond to it.

What's the difference between a Portuguese man-o-war and a cat? Each cell in the former is said to be a separate organism, EVEN THOUGH they all have the same DNA and they are differentiated into different organs and tissues that do different jobs (the tentacles, the sail/bladder-float thing). A cat is the same way, but biologists don't say that every cell in a cat is a separate organism that lives with other cat-cells that do other jobs so that the entire "colony" of cat-cells might survive by cooperating. They say that the cat is one organism. What is the difference?

The sentence below from the article is not a complete answer: QUOTE: The difference between a multicellular organism and a colonial organism is that individual organisms from a colony can, if separated, survive on their own, while cells from a multicellular lifeform (e.g., cells from a brain) cannot. UNQUOTE

If the different cells of a colonial group can survive alone, why are they grouping together when it's not necessary for survival? It may turn out (but I don't know) that perhaps one cell of a colonial group can SURVIVE on its own (while a cell from a cat can't) but cannot REPRODUCE on its own, so that the only strains that perpetuate themselves are the ones that have the DNA that compels them to form groups capable of reproducing.

When I got to this discussion-page to voice my problems with the answer, I found that not only is it insufficient but it is factually wrong: Other posters here avow that individual cells of Portuguese men-o-war can NOT survive alone.

So, what is it that makes biologists say that a cat is one organism made of many cells but that a Portuguese man'o'war is many organisms (each made of one cell) that find it advantageous to hang out together? I assume that this question has an answer but I don't know what it is and it'd be nice if someone would write it into the article.69.86.126.190 (talk) 12:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson


 * The biological definition of colonial is very simple actually - everything that is composed of multiple multicelled organisms is a colony. So how do we find out, whether multiple parts of the colony are not just organs in the first place? We compare it with other close relatives and if we find freeliving organisms there, that resemble the parts here, voila, we have a colony. Also the fact that these parts are more or less replicated - with specializations maybe, but still visibly similar - gives us a strong clue that its a colony of multicelled organisms. Thats about it - I see no reason to discuss forth and back whether or not a multicelled organism should itself be called a colony (as it is not). Also, the parts of a colony obviously need not to be able to live independently. I'd remove that statement alltogether and btw. the article about the Physalis physalis should really be left alone, as there is nothing wrong with it concerning its description of Physalis sp. as a colony - as it is one; if anything needs to be fixed, it is this article. Harald Nowak, University of Vienna, Department of theoretical Biology, 2014-02-08 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.88.19.103 (talk) 12:41, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Reworked colonial organism material
I came here to check the exact definition of a colonial organism & discovered I knew more about it than Wikipedia did, so I’ve attempted to take the bull by the horns. I’ve reworked that section, following essentially the framework given by Dr. Nowak above. I made the self-similarity the primary criterion & the evolutionary similarity the secondary mostly because it was easier to write that way, & also because one could in theory imagine a clade in which there didn’t happen to be any free-living relatives known to science. I also cleaned up the bacterial colony (now generalized to microbial colony) section.

I’m not an expert, so there might be fine points that need tweaking, & I’ve hedged in some places (in particular: do colonial organisms necessarily show at least rudimentary differentiation into two or more component types? I threw in a “typically” on that.) But I am a biologist & am sure we’ve got it basically right now, unlike previously. And anyway, we have our expert attention in the form of the talk page entry from Dr Nowak. So I’ve taken the liberty of dropping the “expert attention needed” box. Gould363 (talk) 03:32, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Reworking article
This material is definitely in need of help. I have started this process, but am looking for input. My expertise is primarily on colonial animals and not organisms living within a colony. While I can explain the differences between both, is it in the scope of this article to explain both in detail?

On a related note, the article on clonal colonies only covers plants, but clonal colonies may also be animals that reproduce asexually (clone) to form a colony of genetically identical individuals. Perhaps the two should be merged? I don't feel comfortable linking this article to clonal colony yet because I think it is misleading to focus here on animals and then link to an article primarily on plants. Any suggestions are welcome! -Mccullermi (talk) 02:52, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

After a bit of research, I have added in a summary of Clonal colonies and how they differ from a colony of genetically distinct individuals and interconnected, dependent, colonial organisms. -Mccullermi (talk) 04:03, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the great work. It's good to have somebody in the field on board.  I think the structure you've imposed on the article now has done wonders to bring order from chaos.  I made one minor edit.  Will also do a quick copyedit a little later (to standardize Wikipedia format etc).
 * Yes, I do think that explaining each in detail is perfectly appropriate. At some point we might have enough material to think about splitting the article, but we're probably not to that point yet.  I was originally thinking that "colonial organism" might be better split off, but with your new structure it all fits together much more naturally and (dare I say it?) organically.  Not that I'd be opposed to giving it a page of its own (it certainly merits it conceptually), but I think keeping everything under the Colony umbrella topic is ok for now.
 * We should try to make the lede a little less jargony for a general audience. "Determinate" and "indeterminate" won't mean anything to anyone other than a developmental/organismal biologist. I made an attempt to explain "morphological unit" (otherwise it's one of those terms that, if you don't already know what it means, is unlikely to help you). See what you think.
 * I do think the material from Harald Nowak above would still add something. Is there a way to work that back in? Gould363 (talk) 01:32, 27 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I think that splitting the material would made sense. I've been thinking about it and it might get a bit too confusing specifying between a colony of unitary organisms and modular organisms. Perhaps it would be best to split those two major groups.
 * I'll work on the lead..sometimes it's hard to de-jargon information like this!
 * Definitely not done with this and will be working on it over time. I took out any reference to the man o' war, but will add it back in in a section that it belongs in. My plan is to cover some of the controversy between what is an individual and how selection acts on the level of the individual or as the colony. Also life history and adaptive strategies of colonial life - very different from that of independent, unitary individuals! -Mccullermi (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:11, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to encourage someone to do some further work on this article, especially the lead. I came to the article to learn the definitional difference between a colony and a multicellular organism - a common interest, judging by this talk page - but the article still does not provide this clearly. The lead, in particular, is contradictory and confusing. The first sentence says that the organisms must be conspecific, but the second sentence says they must be clones (which seems actually to relate more to the term "colony" as used in laboratory microbiology, which is perhaps not so relevant here?). The third sentence contrasts colonies with solitary organisms, but then the fourth sentence says that colonies can be composed of multiple solitary organisms. I would say that a really clear and consistent distinction between colonies and multicellular organisms needs to be set out in the first few lines of the lead, since this is one of the most important issues. Kyle MoJo (talk) 10:22, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Topics need to be separated.
The text of the article as it is now is confusing and self-contradictory. There needs to be a more clear distinctions made between parts of the article discussing colonies of social animals, colonies of microorganisms, and colonial animals made up of zooids. It may even be best to separate these topics into their own articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8804:8280:4160:CD1E:A26C:D0EC:456B (talk) 18:44, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Colonial vs multicellular organism, again
Reading the article's current definition of colonial organisms, there is nothing in there that would allow a reader to distinguish colonial organisms from multicellular organisms. If there is no agreed-upon definition and biologists contradict each other, maybe this should be pointed out if a reference can be found. --92.212.29.170 (talk) 21:32, 26 June 2024 (UTC)