Bacterial linguistic communication and social intelligence.
Bacteria have developed intricate communication capabilities (e.g. quorum-sensing, chemotactic signaling and plasmid exchange) to cooperatively self-organize into highly structured colonies with elevated environmental adaptability. We propose that bacteria use their intracellular flexibility, involving signal transduction networks and genomic plasticity, to collectively maintain linguistic communication: self and shared interpretations of chemical cues, exchange of chemical messages (semantic) and dialogues (pragmatic). Meaning-based communication permits colonial identity, intentional behavior (e.g. pheromone-based courtship for mating), purposeful alteration of colony structure (e.g. formation of fruiting bodies), decision-making (e.g. to sporulate) and the recognition and identification of other colonies - features we might begin to associate with a bacterial social intelligence. Such a social intelligence, should it exist, would require going beyond communication to encompass unknown additional intracellular processes to generate inheritable colonial memory and commonly shared genomic context.
Ben Jacob
Eshel
E
School of Physics and Astronomy, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel. eshel@tamar.ac.il
Becker
Israela
I
Shapira
Yoash
Y
Levine
Herbert
H
D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology; D001419:Bacteria / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D002633:Chemotaxis / Q000502:physiology; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial / Q000502:physiology; D009024:Morphogenesis; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*