 Further reflection along these lines may suggest that an integrated causal network of dependence relations is a mark of being an organism or biological individual; “causal integration, cohesion, collaboration, or agency of parts” is the criterion on Lidgard and Nyhart’s (2017a) list of criteria that they found most often cited in the literature they reviewed. If that were so, then the coral reef may come to be viewed as a better exemplar of either than are the polyps and zooxanthellae, as the reef enjoys a kind or degree of complex, functional integrity that polyps and zooxanthellae arguably lack when considered singly (see also Combes 2001). Alternatively, perhaps the reef should be thought of as some other kind of biological individual, such as an ecosystem, that contains several distinct organisms, the polyps and the zooxanthellae, as proper parts.