The clonal hermaphrodite is a superorganism metaphor. Because of the recombination taking place during sexual reproduction, it is not the continuation of one of the aphid clones of the preceeding spring and summer generations. The egg overwinters and, if it survives, a female will hatch out of it next spring. They live independently. Another difference between true organisms and clonal superorganisms is the lack of separation between the metaphorical soma of a clonal superorganism and the metaphorical germ-line.
Any parthenogenetic lineage can merge into sexual reproduction in autumn.
Yet again, in other species only some lineages switch to sexual reproduction and others do not. It is impossible to understand the biology of a true hermaphrodite by exclusively studying its soma. In fact, it is exactly the germ-line of the hermaphrodite that makes it a hermaphrodite and not any common organism with only one gender. Likewise, it is impossible to understand aphid biology by studying exclusively parthenogenetic generations. It is about ecological interactions of survival leading to evolutionary actions of reproduction or e volutionary ecology .