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Emergence and Modularity in Life Sciences pp 255–279Cite as

Gaia—A Holobiont-like System Emerging From Interaction

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Abstract

The Gaia hypothesis has been heavily discussed ever since its first formulation in the early 1970s. While parts of the hypothesis can be accepted right away, the optimizing view of Gaia as stabilizing conditions on Earth to support life on the planet has raised several doubts. In particular, the evolutionary aspect of conditions evolving in such an optimizing way is hardly in line with classical evolutionary theory. Considering Gaia as a holobiont-like system allows to clarify these issues. Accepting that every form of life interacts in manifold ways with its biotic and abiotic environments and that these interactions form a multilevel network from which higher-level properties can emerge, the self-stabilizing effect of the interactions of the biosphere with the geosphere and the atmosphere can be explained. With viewing evolution as adaptation of interaction and fitness as a shift in probability distribution of the observable, even the optimizing interpretation of Gaia does make sense and leads to valuable insight.

“I will sing of well-founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed of her store. Through you, O queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away.”

(Homeric Hymns, see Anonymous 1914).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Stigmergy denotes the principle of “indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment” (Marsh and Onof 2008, p. 137).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scientific Computing Research Unit, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Ingolstädter Landstraße 1, Neuherberg, Germany, 85764

    Wolfgang zu Castell

  2. Department of Mathematics, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Wolfgang zu Castell

  3. Department of Biology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Ulrich Lüttge

  4. Ecophysiology of Plants, Center of Life and Food Sciences Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München, Freising, Germany

    Rainer Matyssek

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  1. Wolfgang zu Castell
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  2. Ulrich Lüttge
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Correspondence to Wolfgang zu Castell .

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  1. Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

    Lars H. Wegner

  2. FB Biologie, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Ulrich Lüttge

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zu Castell, W., Lüttge, U., Matyssek, R. (2019). Gaia—A Holobiont-like System Emerging From Interaction. In: Wegner, L., Lüttge, U. (eds) Emergence and Modularity in Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06128-9_12

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