Fig. 1.

Four different Types of Hierarchies. a A constitutive hierarchy of molecules, organelles, cells, and organs of a multi-cellular organism. It can be represented as an encaptic hierarchy of types, with every molecule being part of some organelle, every organelle part of some cell and every cell part of some organ. b The same set of entities as in A), organized in a cumulative constitutive hierarchy, which models the organization of biological material entities more accurately. Here, not every molecule that is part of an organism is also necessarily part of some organelle and not every cell necessarily part of some organ. c An aggregative hierarchy is based on mereological/meronymic inclusion that results from a part-whole relation (e.g., ecological hierarchies [15, 17]) or it is based on taxonomic inclusion [138] that results from a subsumption relation (e.g., Linnean taxonomy). In case of mereological inclusion, this hierarchy represents a mereological granularity tree and higher level entities consist of parts that are not physically connected, but only associated with each other. d In a cumulative aggregative hierarchy, as it is used in the hierarchical organization of military stuff, individuals with higher ranks, such as sergeants, lieutenants, and captains, appear in aggregates of higher order, so that squads consist of privates and sergeants, in the next level platoons of privates, sergeants, and lieutenants, and companies of privates, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. (Figure modified from [58])