D02

Individual-based research: concepts, epistemology and integration

Alkistis Elliott-Graves & Marie I. Kaiser

Individual differences and their ecological-evolutionary consequences are a central focus of the CRC. The research in the CRC is thus a paradigm example of Individual-Based Research (IBR), which studies individuals and their interactions with the (social) environment. Our aim is to provide a philosophical framework and analysis of IBR in biology by examining the important conceptual, epistemic, and practical dimensions of IBR as they manifest within the CRC. During the first phase of the project, we focused on three concepts central to the CRC: biological individuality, individualised niche, and mechanisms of Niche Choice, Niche Conformance and Niche Construction (NC³). We clarified these concepts and revealed their ontological presuppositions. In the second phase, we continue our conceptual-theoretical work and use the CRC as a philosophical case study to explore IBR in biology. Our project has three parts. In the first, we focus on conceptual issues in IBR. We deepen and refine our analysis of the individualised niche, addressing a number of questions and challenges to the concept, such as what determines niche dimensions, what are temporal and social niches, and how the individualised niche differs from an individual’s environment. We also uncover a plurality of individualised niche concepts and explicate that different niche concepts suit different research contexts and epistemic goals in the CRC. In the second part, we broaden our framework to include the major epistemic issues of IBR. We examine the effects of focusing on individuality in the context of complex systems research, showing that individuality, uniqueness, and heterogeneity contribute to complexity, and therefore should be included into accounts of complexity in biology. We also examine the tension between making inferences about individuals from group-level methods, building on our analysis of experimental methods from the first phase to include (individual-based) models and meta-analysis. In the third part of our project, we analyse how the CRC provides a “novel synthesis of individualisation across behaviour, ecology and evolution” and which integrative practices on which levels contribute to this. On the basis of a detailed analysis of concrete instances of integration and of philosophical ideas about types of integration, we develop a philosophical account of integration in biological IBR. This account reveals how findings from different biological fields are integrated at different levels in the CRC and clarifies how the conceptual-theoretical framework of NC³-mechanisms fosters integration.

Collaborations

Established and planned collaborations within the CRC