structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:tone
Whether criteria exist, or are needed

Among the criteria that have been proposed for being an organism are:

Other scientists think that the concept of the organism is inadequate in biology; that the concept of individuality is problematic; and from a philosophical point of view, question whether such a definition is necessary.

Problematic cases include colonial organisms: for instance, a colony of eusocial insects fulfills criteria such as adaptive organisation and germ-soma specialisation. If so, the same argument, or a criterion of high co-operation and low conflict, would include some mutualistic (e.g. lichens) and sexual partnerships (e.g. anglerfish) as organisms. If group selection occurs, then a group could be viewed as a superorganism, optimized by group adaptation.

Another view is that attributes like autonomy, genetic homogeneity and genetic uniqueness should be examined separately rather than demanding that an organism should have all of them; if so, there are multiple dimensions to biological individuality, resulting in several types of organism.