摘要翻译：
生物体是生物学中的一个基本概念。然而，对于什么是有机体，没有一个普遍接受的、正式的、但广泛适用的定义。这里我们介绍一个候选定义。我们认为，“有机体”是一个功能概念，科学家用它来解决有关生物系统未来状态的特定问题，而不是完全由该系统定义的东西。在这种方法中，生物体是一个生物系统的细粒度动力学模型的粗粒度。至关重要的是，选择生物系统的粗粒度，这样科学家就可以利用它们的动力学来准确预测他们感兴趣的生物系统的特征，而且这样做的计算负担最小。为了说明我们的框架，我们将其应用于地衣共生的动态模型--在这个系统中，地衣或其组成的真菌和藻类可以合理地被视为“有机体”。我们发现，在这种情况下，生物体的最佳选择是许多实体的复杂混合物，这些实体与生物体的标准概念不同。当我们将允许的粗颗粒限制在更传统类型的生物时，我们发现生态条件，如生态位竞争和捕食压力，在决定生物的最佳选择方面起着重要作用。
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英文标题：
《A quantitative definition of organismality and its application to lichen》
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作者：
Eric Libby and Joshua Grochow and Simon DeDeo and David Wolpert
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最新提交年份：
2016
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分类信息：

一级分类：Quantitative Biology        数量生物学
二级分类：Other Quantitative Biology        其他定量生物学
分类描述：Work in quantitative biology that does not fit into the other q-bio classifications
不适合其他q-bio分类的定量生物学工作
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英文摘要：
  The organism is a fundamental concept in biology. However there is no universally accepted, formal, and yet broadly applicable definition of what an organism is. Here we introduce a candidate definition. We adopt the view that the "organism" is a functional concept, used by scientists to address particular questions concerning the future state of a biological system, rather than something wholly defined by that system. In this approach organisms are a coarse-graining of a fine-grained dynamical model of a biological system. Crucially, the coarse-graining of the system into organisms is chosen so that their dynamics can be used by scientists to make accurate predictions of those features of the biological system that interests them, and do so with minimal computational burden. To illustrate our framework we apply it to a dynamic model of lichen symbiosis---a system where either the lichen or its constituent fungi and algae could reasonably be considered "organisms." We find that the best choice for what organisms are in this scenario are complex mixtures of many entities that do not resemble standard notions of organisms. When we restrict our allowed coarse-grainings to more traditional types of organisms, we find that ecological conditions, such as niche competition and predation pressure, play a significant role in determining the best choice for organisms.
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PDF链接：
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1612.00036