Seth Bordenstein: Winds of Change - Breathing a New Disciplinary Matrix Into Biology

The holobiont framework recognizes the host and its associated microbiome are a fundamental unit in the hierarchy of biological organization. Consequently, mathematical theory, experiments, databases, organizations, and lexicons are modernizing to embrace a synthesis that prescribes prominence to hierarchically nested, though not necessarily integrated, bionts and genomes. In this closing keynote seminar at the 2024 Applied Hologenomics Conference in Copenhangen, Professor Seth Bordenstein discusses the synergy and growth of the holobiont and hologenome disciplinary matrix from scholarship to summits and financial support. This talk advances contemporary tools for studying holobionts and hologenomes and identifies priority research and resource topics that conventionalize holobiont scholarship.
Keywords: Carl Woese, Holobiont, Hologenome, Speciation, Phylosymbiosis, Wolbachia, Gut Microbiome, Evolution, Ecology, Microbiology, Hierarchy of biological levels, Tree of Life, Adaptation, Theory