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Architectures of biological complexity.

James W Valentine¹

¹Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.

Integrative and Comparative Biology

|June 18, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Biological complexity arises from parts, order, and iteration. Functional entities, though tree-like in development, organize into hierarchies, evident in somatic and ecological structures.

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Area of Science:

Developmental biology
Systems biology
Ecology

Background:

Biological entities exhibit complexity based on the number, order, and iteration of their parts.
Many functional biological systems, despite originating from tree-like developmental processes, adopt hierarchical organizational structures for function.
Hierarchies are emergent properties of complex entities, transformed from tree-like architectures by process networks.

Purpose of the Study:

To explore the relationship between tree-like developmental processes and hierarchical functional organization in biological entities.
To investigate how complexity in biological entities, particularly metazoan bodies and ecological units, is structured hierarchically.
To understand the role of signaling networks in transforming gene expression trees into somatic hierarchies.

Main Methods:

Conceptual analysis of biological complexity and organizational structures.
Examination of existing examples of natural hierarchies, such as somatic and ecological hierarchies.
Inference of hierarchical structures within metazoan developmental genomes based on evolutionary and developmental processes.

Main Results:

Natural hierarchies are identified as organizational structures emergent from complex functional entities.
Hierarchies are observed in both the somatic architecture of metazoans and the biotic structure of ecogeographic units.
Metazoan developmental genomes, evolved through tree-like processes, must contain hierarchies, indicated by somatic hierarchy development.

Conclusions:

Hierarchical organization is a fundamental principle in complex biological systems, emerging from tree-like developmental pathways.
The transformation of tree-like gene expression events into somatic hierarchies involves complex signaling networks.
Understanding these hierarchical transformations offers insights into the evolutionary history of biological complexity.