On Mushroom Individuality

This paper is an application of the principles of individuality found in Guay and Pradeu (2016a) to illuminate biological individuality in mushrooms. I begin with the distinction between logico-cognitive individuals and ontological individuals (Chauvier 2016), and then I argue for genidentity (Lewin 1922, Guay and Pradeu 2016b) plus material continuity, as a minimum conception of ontological individuality in biology. Of the many materially-continuous genidenticals found in fungi, only those with functional roles in biological theory, either evolutionary or physiological, warrant consideration. Given numerous ways that theory picks out materially-continuous genidenticals in fungi, I argue for a pluralistic account of mushroom individuality