At Quanta, we learn from science writer Carl Zimmer that viruses live in communities “full of cheating, cooperation and other intrigues.”

“For example, if you think of viruses as isolated packages of genes, it would be absurd to imagine them having a social life. But [Marco] Vignuzzi and a new school of like-minded virologists don’t think it’s absurd at all. In recent decades, they have discovered some strange features of viruses that don’t make sense if viruses are lonely particles. They instead are uncovering a marvelously complex social world of viruses. These sociovirologists, as the researchers sometimes call themselves, believe that viruses make sense only as members of a community.”

Carl Zimmer, “Viruses Finally Reveal Their Complex Social Life,” Quanta, April 11, 2024

Viruses are tiny infectious particles that consist of a very small genome — either DNA or RNA — inside a protein shell (capsid). They don’t have a metabolism; instead, an infected host cell’s metabolism makes copies of the virus, thus spreading it. There is an active debate about whether viruses should even be classed as life forms. A typical virus can only be seen via an electron microscope.

Yet these hardly-alive entities are thought by some virologists — sociovirologists — to engage in competition and cooperation.

The “cheating” begins with defective viruses

Infected cells harbor, alongside complete viruses, many incomplete ones — viruses with shorter genomes than the average. That’s likely because the viral genome got copied incorrectly or else mutated.

Sociovirologists like Sam Díaz-Muñoz and colleagues term these viruses “cheaters,” Zimmer tells us. How do they cheat? Because the defective virus has less genetic material, it replicates faster and its numbers grow as an infection progresses. In another scenario, the defective virus lacks the genes for its capsid (protein shell) so it inserts its genes into a whole virus instead.

How the viruses came to be seen as a community

It’s not clear at first why sociovirologists choose to define these phenomena as “cheating.” They sound like the behavior of a sputtering mechanical system. But by beginning with the concept of cheating, as Zimmer reports, the sociovirologists can introduce the idea of viruses as a community:

Carolina López, a virologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, believes that some viruses that look like they’re cheating may actually play a more benign role in viral societies. Instead of exploiting their fellow viruses, they cooperate, helping them thrive.

“We think of them as part of a community,” López said, “with everybody playing a critical role.”

Zimmer, “Their Complex Social Life”

López thinks, based on her research, that incomplete viruses might benefit “the entire viral community” by multiplying rapidly enough to keep the spread of infection in check because “if functional viruses replicated uncontrollably, they might overwhelm and kill their current host before transmission to a new host could take place. That would be self-defeating.”

Self-defeating? So they are selves now?

As Zimmer reports, the whole area is largely unknown. It is interpreted largely by forays into evolutionary psychology:

“If they really were acting as pure cheaters, I would predict that there would be substantial selective pressure to minimize their production,” [virologist Christopher] Brooke said. “And yet we see them all the time.” …

[Virologist Asher] Leeks agrees that incomplete viruses may be productive parts of the viral community. But he thinks it’s always important to consider the possibility that even when they look like they’re cooperating, they are still actually cheating. Evolutionary theory predicts that cheating will often arise in viruses, thanks to their tiny genomes. “In viruses, conflict is dominant,” Leeks said.

Zimmer, “Their Complex Social Life”

But is it really even “conflict”? Or is it just strings of genes colliding? Anyway, the co-operation thesis seems imperiled at this point.

Zimmer offers a comparison to a beehive: “The arrangement is reminiscent of a beehive’s division of labor, in which the insects split the work of gathering nectar, tending to larvae and scouting new locations for the hive to move to.” Yes, but feeding themselves and looking after their young is precisely the sort of thing that bees must do in order to live — and viruses do not. Can viruses even want anything?

As all parties admit, we don’t know very much about viruses. It is not clear from Zimmer’s fine article that “zoomorphism” (that is, researching viruses as if they were, say, animals) is going to solve more conceptual problems than it creates. Yet that comparison is the basis of sociovirology.

Creeping panpsychism?

Panpsychists (everything is conscious), can easily accept that viruses participate in some level of consciousness, in which case they may very well compete or cooperate. Perhaps sociovirology is an instance of the slow creep of panpsychism in the sciences. But it is early days yet to be sure.

Note: Anthropomorphism means treating animal behavior as if the animals were humans, as in “My dog was jealous because that other dog’s collar cost more.” By analogy, zoomorphism is something like “Viruses are members of a community,” as if they were wolves or bees.