2018
Overview
Semiotic systems in nature are the organized ways in which living organisms produce, transmit, receive, and interpret signs and signals to convey and respond to information within and between themselves and their environment. This concept lies at the heart of biosemiotics, the interdisciplinary study of signs, meaning, and communication in living systems, which extends the study of signs beyond human language to the biological world. Such systems operate at many levels, from molecular and cellular signaling within and between cells, to chemical, visual, acoustic, and behavioral signals exchanged among organisms, to the complex communication found in social species. Biosemiotics treats these processes as forms of sign use, examining how meaning and interpretation arise in life and how the capacity to detect and respond to signs is fundamental to survival, development, and ecological interaction. By integrating perspectives from biology, semiotics, and related fields, the study of semiotic systems in nature seeks to understand life as inherently involving the processing of information and meaning. Within the broader scope of biosemiotic research, this topic connects communication, cognition, and biology across the living world. This page presents encyclopedic background on semiotic systems in nature and their place in the study of signs and meaning in living systems.
Research published in this journal
1 peer-reviewed article, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.