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Edelaar P, Otsuka J, Luque VJ. A generalised approach to the study and understanding of adaptive evolution. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2023; 98:352-375. [PMID: 36223883 PMCID: PMC10091731 DOI: 10.1111/brv.12910] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2022] [Revised: 09/22/2022] [Accepted: 09/28/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
Evolutionary theory has made large impacts on our understanding and management of the world, in part because it has been able to incorporate new data and new insights successfully. Nonetheless, there is currently a tension between certain biological phenomena and mainstream evolutionary theory. For example, how does the inheritance of molecular epigenetic changes fit into mainstream evolutionary theory? Is niche construction an evolutionary process? Is local adaptation via habitat choice also adaptive evolution? These examples suggest there is scope (and perhaps even a need) to broaden our views on evolution. We identify three aspects whose incorporation into a single framework would enable a more generalised approach to the understanding and study of adaptive evolution: (i) a broadened view of extended phenotypes; (ii) that traits can respond to each other; and (iii) that inheritance can be non-genetic. We use causal modelling to integrate these three aspects with established views on the variables and mechanisms that drive and allow for adaptive evolution. Our causal model identifies natural selection and non-genetic inheritance of adaptive parental responses as two complementary yet distinct and independent drivers of adaptive evolution. Both drivers are compatible with the Price equation; specifically, non-genetic inheritance of parental responses is captured by an often-neglected component of the Price equation. Our causal model is general and simplified, but can be adjusted flexibly in terms of variables and causal connections, depending on the research question and/or biological system. By revisiting the three examples given above, we show how to use it as a heuristic tool to clarify conceptual issues and to help design empirical research. In contrast to a gene-centric view defining evolution only in terms of genetic change, our generalised approach allows us to see evolution as a change in the whole causal structure, consisting not just of genetic but also of phenotypic and environmental variables.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pim Edelaar
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemical Engineering, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Carretera Utrera km.1, 41013, Seville, Spain.,Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Thunbergsvägen 2, SE-75238, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Jun Otsuka
- Department of Philosophy, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Hommachi, Sakyo, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan.,RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Tokyo, 103-0027, Japan
| | - Victor J Luque
- Department of Philosophy, University of Valencia, Av. de Blasco Ibáñez, 30, 46010, València, Spain
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Fromhage L, Houston AI. Biological adaptation in light of the Lewontin-Williams (a)symmetry. Evolution 2022; 76:1619-1624. [PMID: 35544781 PMCID: PMC9544502 DOI: 10.1111/evo.14502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2021] [Revised: 03/03/2022] [Accepted: 03/30/2022] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
Neo-Darwinism characterizes biological adaptation as a one-sided process, in which organisms adapt to their environment but not vice versa. This asymmetric relationship-here called Williams' asymmetry-is called into question by Niche Construction Theory, which emphasizes that organisms and their environments often mutually affect each other. Here, we clarify that Williams' asymmetry is specifically concerned with (quasi)-directed modifications toward phenotypes that increase individual fitness. This directedness-which drives the adaptive fit between organism and environment-entails far more than the mere presence of cause-effect relationships. We argue that difficulties with invoking fitness as the guiding principle of adaptive evolution are resolved with an appropriate definition of fitness and that objections against Williams' asymmetry reflect confusions about the nature of biological adaptation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lutz Fromhage
- Department of Biological and Environmental ScienceUniversity of JyvaskylaJyvaskylaFinland
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3
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Mastrogiorgio A, Felin T, Kauffman S, Mastrogiorgio M. More Thumbs Than Rules: Is Rationality an Exaptation? Front Psychol 2022; 13:805743. [PMID: 35282257 PMCID: PMC8912947 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.805743] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2021] [Accepted: 01/03/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
The literatures on bounded and ecological rationality are built on adaptationism-and its associated modular, cognitivist and computational paradigm-that does not address or explain the evolutionary origins of rationality. We argue that the adaptive mechanisms of evolution are not sufficient for explaining human rationality, and we posit that human rationality presents exaptive origins, where exaptations are traits evolved for other functions or no function at all, and later co-opted for new uses. We propose an embodied reconceptualization of rationality-embodied rationality-based on the reuse of the perception-action system, where many neural processes involved in the control of the sensory-motor system, salient in ancestral environments have been later co-opted to create-by tinkering-high-level reasoning processes, employed in civilized niches.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Teppo Felin
- Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University, Logan, UT, United States.,Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Stuart Kauffman
- Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), Seattle, WA, United States
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Yeakel JD, Pires MM, de Aguiar MAM, O'Donnell JL, Guimarães PR, Gravel D, Gross T. Diverse interactions and ecosystem engineering can stabilize community assembly. Nat Commun 2020; 11:3307. [PMID: 32620766 PMCID: PMC7335095 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17164-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2019] [Accepted: 06/11/2020] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
The complexity of an ecological community can be distilled into a network, where diverse interactions connect species in a web of dependencies. Species interact directly with each other and indirectly through environmental effects, however to our knowledge the role of these ecosystem engineers has not been considered in ecological network models. Here we explore the dynamics of ecosystem assembly, where species colonization and extinction depends on the constraints imposed by trophic, service, and engineering dependencies. We show that our assembly model reproduces many key features of ecological systems, such as the role of generalists during assembly, realistic maximum trophic levels, and increased nestedness with mutualistic interactions. We find that ecosystem engineering has large and nonlinear effects on extinction rates. While small numbers of engineers reduce stability by increasing primary extinctions, larger numbers of engineers increase stability by reducing primary extinctions and extinction cascade magnitude. Our results suggest that ecological engineers may enhance community diversity while increasing persistence by facilitating colonization and limiting competitive exclusion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Justin D Yeakel
- University of California Merced, 5200 Lake Road, Merced, CA, 95343, USA.
- Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM, 87501, USA.
| | - Mathias M Pires
- Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz-Barão Geraldo, Campinas, São Paulo, 13083-970, Brazil
| | - Marcus A M de Aguiar
- Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz-Barão Geraldo, Campinas, São Paulo, 13083-970, Brazil
| | | | - Paulo R Guimarães
- Universidade de São Paulo, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo-State of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Dominique Gravel
- Universitè de Sherbrooke, 2500 Boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, QC, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Thilo Gross
- University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA
- Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Oldenburg, Germany
- Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB), Ammerländer Heerstrasse 231, 26129, Oldenburg, Germany
- University of Oldenburg, ICBM, 26129, Oldenburg, Germany
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Buskell A. Synthesising arguments and the extended evolutionary synthesis. STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGICAL AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES 2020; 80:101244. [PMID: 31917083 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2019.101244] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2018] [Revised: 12/18/2019] [Accepted: 12/27/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Synthesising arguments motivate changes to the conceptual tools, theoretical structure, and evaluatory framework employed in a given scientific domain. Recently, a broad coalition of researchers has put forward a synthesising argument in favour of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis ('EES'). Often this synthesising argument is evaluated using a virtue-based approach, which construes the EES as a wholesale alternative to prevailing practice. Here I argue this virtue-based approach is not fit for purpose. Taking the central concept of niche construction as a case study, I show that an agenda-based approach better captures the pragmatic and epistemological goals of the EES synthesising argument and diagnoses areas of empirical disagreement with prevailing practice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew Buskell
- Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Free School Lane, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3RH, UK.
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Scale-invariant topology and bursty branching of evolutionary trees emerge from niche construction. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:7879-7887. [PMID: 32209672 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1915088117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Phylogenetic trees describe both the evolutionary process and community diversity. Recent work has established that they exhibit scale-invariant topology, which quantifies the fact that their branching lies in between the two extreme cases of balanced binary trees and maximally unbalanced ones. In addition, the backbones of phylogenetic trees exhibit bursts of diversification on all timescales. Here, we present a simple, coarse-grained statistical model of niche construction coupled to speciation. Finite-size scaling analysis of the dynamics shows that the resultant phylogenetic tree topology is scale-invariant due to a singularity arising from large niche construction fluctuations that follow extinction events. The same model recapitulates the bursty pattern of diversification in time. These results show how dynamical scaling laws of phylogenetic trees on long timescales can reflect the indelible imprint of the interplay between ecological and evolutionary processes.
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Abstract
Abstract
Responding to commentaries from psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and anthropologists, I clarify a central purpose of Cognitive Gadgets – to overcome “cognition blindness” in research on human evolution. I defend this purpose against Brunerian, extended mind, and niche construction critiques of computationalism – that is, views prioritising meaning over information, or asserting that behaviour and objects can be intrinsic parts of a thinking process. I argue that empirical evidence from cognitive science is needed to locate distinctively human cognitive mechanisms on the continuum between gadgets and instincts. Focussing on that requirement, I also address specific challenges, and applaud extensions and refinements, of the evidence surveyed in my book. It has been said that “a writer's idea of sound criticism is ten thousand words of closely reasoned adulation.” I cannot disagree with this untraceable wag, but the 30 commentators on Cognitive Gadgets provided some 30,000 words of criticism that are of much greater scientific value than adulation. I am grateful to them all. The response that follows is V-shaped. It starts with the broadest conceptual and methodological issues and funnels down to matters arising from specific empirical studies.
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Lewens T. The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: what is the debate about, and what might success for the extenders look like? Biol J Linn Soc Lond 2019. [DOI: 10.1093/biolinnean/blz064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/30/2023]
Abstract
Abstract
Debate over the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) ranges over three quite different domains of enquiry. Protagonists are committed to substantive positions regarding (1) empirical questions concerning (for example) the properties and prevalence of systems of epigenetic inheritance; (2) historical characterizations of the modern synthesis; and (3) conceptual/philosophical matters concerning (among other things) the nature of evolutionary processes, and the relationship between selection and adaptation. With these different aspects of the debate in view, it is possible to demonstrate the range of cross-cutting positions on offer when well-informed evolutionists consider their stance on the EES. This overview of the multiple dimensions of debate also enables clarification of two philosophical elements of the EES debate, regarding the status of niche-construction and the role of selection in explaining adaptation. Finally, it points the way to a possible resolution of the EES debate, via a pragmatic approach to evolutionary enquiry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tim Lewens
- University of Cambridge – History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, UK
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Gupta M, Prasad NG, Dey S, Joshi A, Vidya TNC. Feldman et al. do protest too much, we think. J Genet 2017; 96:509-511. [DOI: 10.1007/s12041-017-0796-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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