Social insect colonies can express adaptive, organism-like design. In some cases, colonies so resemble a unique, cohesive and integrated “individual” that they are termed superorganisms. The major evolutionary transitions framework explains, via inclusive fitness theory, how new levels of biological individuality, including genes into genomes within cells, cells into multicellular organisms and organisms into superorganisms can emerge. Importantly, it highlights how at each major transition similar challenges arose and why seemingly convergent solutions evolved. One challenge faced at each transition is exploitation, caused internally by social cheaters and externally by parasites and pathogens. To overcome the problem of exploitation transitions in biological individuality required novel immune systems to maintain the integrity of newly emerged individuals. Multicellular organisms evolved an immune system while social insect colonies evolved a social immune system. In this review, we take a major transitions perspective of immunity to highlight the interdependency between the evolution of immune systems and the emergence of biological individuality. We build on the notion that superorganisms have evolved an immune system to promote the fitness of the colony. We draw parallels between the evolution of the metazoan immune system and the social immune system, and their expression as cognitive networks. Moreover, we discuss how research on other group-living species, such as family based cooperative breeders, can inform our understanding of how social immune systems evolve. We conclude that superorganism immunity is an adaptive suite of organismal traits that evolves to maximize the fitness of advanced social insect colonies, fulfilling the same function as the immune system of Metazoa.

中文翻译：

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超有机体免疫：免疫系统进化的重大转变

社会昆虫群体可以表达适应性的、类似生物的设计。在某些情况下，菌落非常类似于一个独特的、有凝聚力的和整合的“个体”，以至于它们被称为超有机体。主要的进化转变框架通过包容性适应理论解释了生物个体的新水平，包括基因进入细胞内的基因组、细胞进入多细胞生物和有机体成为超有机体。重要的是，它强调了在每个重大转型中如何出现类似的挑战，以及为什么会出现看似趋同的解决方案。每次转型面临的一个挑战是剥削，内部由社会骗子造成，外部由寄生虫和病原体引起。为了克服生物个性中的利用转变问题，需要新的免疫系统来维持新出现的个体的完整性。多细胞生物进化出免疫系统，而群居昆虫群落进化出社会免疫系统。在这篇综述中，我们从免疫的主要转变角度来强调免疫系统进化与生物个体出现之间的相互依存关系。我们建立在超有机体已经进化出一种免疫系统来促进群体健康的概念之上。我们在后生动物免疫系统和社会免疫系统的进化及其作为认知网络的表达之间进行了比较。此外，我们讨论了如何研究其​​他群体生活物种，例如家庭合作育种者，可以让我们了解社会免疫系统如何进化。我们得出结论，超有机体免疫是一组适应性的有机体特征，其进化以最大限度地提高高级社会昆虫群体的适应性，实现与后生动物免疫系统相同的功能。