Hostname: page-component-7f64f4797f-g5lq8 Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-11-05T14:57:19.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evolution of social “cognitive cell” adaptations in unicellular organisms with complex mating traits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2025

Kevin B. Clark Open the ORCID record for Kevin B. Clark [Opens in a new window]
Kevin B. Clark*
Affiliation:
Cures Within Reach, Chicago, IL 60602, USA Campus and Domain Champions Program, Multi-Tier Assistance, Training, and Computational Help (MATCH) Track, National Science Foundation’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services and Support, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890, USA Expert Network, Penn Center for Innovation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA Networks for Life Detection (NfoLD) and Life From Early Cells to Multicellularity (LIFE), Research Coordination Networks, NASA Astrobiology Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA 94035, USA Frontier Development Lab, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA 94036, USA SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA Peace Innovation Institute, The Hague 2511, Netherlands Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94035, USA Shared Interest Group for Natural and Artificial Intelligence (sigNAI), Max Planck Alumni Association, 14057 Berlin, Germany Biometrics and Nanotechnology Councils, Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), New York, NY 10016-5997, USA Data Standards Technical Working Group, National Ecological Observatory Network, National Science Foundation and Battelle, Boulder, CO 80301, USA kbclarkphd@yahoo.com
*
*Corresponding author.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Social intelligences and goal-directed behaviors of mate selection show conservation throughout phylogeny, from unicellular to multicellular life. Some microbes co-evolved somatic ornaments and weapons, behavioral courtship and dominance routines, and decision-making logics that facilitate mate choice, rival deterrence, and monogamy, gating spread of inferior genes from promiscuous unions. Such “cognitive cell” adaptations help microbes direct niche evolution for improved survival.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 48 , 2025 , e85
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Chen, C., Martínez, R. M., & Cheng, Y. (2018). The developmental origins of the social brain: Empathy, morality, and justice. Frontiers in Psychology 9: 2584.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2010). Arrhenius-kinetics evidence for quantum tunneling in microbial “social” decision rates. Communicative & Integrative Biology 3(6): 540–544.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2012). Social biases determine spatiotemporal sparseness of ciliate mating heuristics. Communicative & Integrative Biology 5(1): 3–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2013a). Ciliates learn to diagnose and correct classical error syndromes in mating strategies. Frontiers in Microbiology 4: 229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2013b). The mating judgments of microbes. In Clark, K. B. (Ed.), Social Learning Theory: Phylogenetic Considerations across Animal, Plant, and Microbial taxa, pp. 173–200. Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Google Scholar
Clark, K. B. (2014). Evolution of affective and linguistic disambiguation under social eavesdropping pressures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37(6): 551–552.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2015). Insight and analysis problem solving in microbes to machines. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 119: 183–193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2017). The humanness of artificial nonnormative personalities. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40: e259.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2019). Unpredictable homeodynamic and ambient constraints on irrational decision making of aneural and neural foragers. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42: e40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2020). Digital life, a Theory of Minds, and mapping human and machine cultural universals. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43: e98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2021a). Quantum decision corrections for the neuroeconomics of irrational movement control and goal attainment. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 44: e127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, K. B. (2021b). Ultrasociality, goods theory, and primitive agriculture in cosmopolitan Earth and putative extraterrestrial microbial symbionts. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 53(4): 26.Google Scholar
Clark, K. B. (2021c). Classical and quantum information processing in aneural to neural cellular decision making on Earth and perhaps beyond. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 53(4): 33.Google Scholar
Clark, K. B. (2021d). Eco-evolutionary origins, nature, and impact of paired reproduction in Earth and possible extraterrestrial microbiota. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 53(4): 24.Google Scholar
Clark, K. B. (2023). Ownership psychology as a “cognitive cell” adaptation: A minimalist model of microbial goods theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46: e330.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Waal, F. & Preston, S. (2017). Mammalian empathy: Behavioural manifestations and neural basis. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 18: 498–509.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1998). The social brain hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology 6(5): 178–190.3.0.CO;2-8>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, S. T. & McKinney, M. L. (1999). Origins of Intelligence. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1952). The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International Universities Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russon, A. E., Bard, K. A., & Parker, S. T., Eds. (1996). Reaching into Thought: The Minds of the Great Apes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Trestman, M. (2013). The Cambrian explosion and the origins of embodied cognition. Biological Theory 8: 80–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar