My mother in law, Liliana, turns 100 today. Happy Birthday, Liliana!
Both holobionts and organisms have to fight entropic decay. Holobionts
do that by continuously changing their hologenome in a horizontal exchange of information. Organisms do the same by the vertical mixing of their genome in the process called sexual reproduction. Both methods are driven by natural selection.
The second strategy, sexual reproduction, brings the need of eliminating the old genomes by the process of aging. True holobionts never die (think of a forest), but organisms do. Too bad for organisms, but it is a choice (and a lot of fun, too!).
Liliana turned out to be a successful and resilient organism. So far, she has three daughters, a son, three grandsons, one grand-daughter and, recently, two great-grand daughters. Not bad!
