superorganism

plural superorganisms · alternative super organism

1. biologyA social colony of individuals who, through division of labour, effective communication and self-organization, form a highly connected community that functions as if it were a single organism.

   A superorganism is an ensemble of living and non-living matter, which acts as a single self-regulating system. […] Gaia is the largest and most complex superorganism we know.

   1991, James Lovelock, Healing Gaia, New York: Harmony Books, →ISBN, page 64

   1 more example

   To grasp why Metaman—our strange amalgam of concrete, humans, computer chips, and various plants and animals—is a superorganism rather than merely an elaborate “social grouping” of humans, look at another, far simpler grouping of organisms—a termite colony.

   1993, Gregory Stock, Metaman: the Merging of Humans and Machines Into a Global Superorganism, New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 43