The Individual as Evolutionarily Significant Unit of Itself: Toward a Unified Framework
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The concept of Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU), introduced by Ryder (1986) for conservation genetics, defines populations with distinct evolutionary legacies worthy of preservation. We propose its radical logical extension: every individual organism constitutes, de jure and de facto, an ESU of itself. Drawing from biological individuality theory (Hull, 1980; Godfrey-Smith, 2009), epigenetics, individual selection theory (Williams, 1966; Mayr, 1963), combinatorial genetics, biosemiotics (von Uexküll, 1909), and stochastic developmental biology, we construct a multi-axis demonstration that no two individuals — across any sexually reproducing species, and arguably beyond — share identical biological identity. This irrepeatability is not merely statistical but ontological, evolutionarily consequential, and ethically significant. We argue for a new integrative field: Individual Evolutionary Ontology (IEO).
Author: Piazzolla, Gabriele
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7165042337
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