Behavioral Choices and Shifts, Niche Construction, Natural Selection, Extinctions, and Asymmetry

2017 ◽  
pp. 35-52
Author(s):  
Rui Diogo
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Behavioral Choices ◽  
And Shifts

scholarly journals Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1566) ◽  
pp. 785-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Kendal ◽  
Jamshid J. Tehrani ◽  
John Odling-Smee
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Genetic Inheritance ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Ecological Inheritance ◽  
Human Niche Construction ◽  
The Social

Niche construction is an endogenous causal process in evolution, reciprocal to the causal process of natural selection. It works by adding ecological inheritance , comprising the inheritance of natural selection pressures previously modified by niche construction, to genetic inheritance in evolution. Human niche construction modifies selection pressures in environments in ways that affect both human evolution, and the evolution of other species. Human ecological inheritance is exceptionally potent because it includes the social transmission and inheritance of cultural knowledge, and material culture. Human genetic inheritance in combination with human cultural inheritance thus provides a basis for gene–culture coevolution, and multivariate dynamics in cultural evolution. Niche construction theory potentially integrates the biological and social aspects of the human sciences. We elaborate on these processes, and provide brief introductions to each of the papers published in this theme issue.

scholarly journals Niche Construction Affects the Variability and Strength of Natural Selection

2020 ◽  
Vol 195 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Clark ◽  
Dominik Deffner ◽  
Kevin Laland ◽  
John Odling-Smee ◽  
John Endler
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Niche Construction

scholarly journals Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (23) ◽  
pp. 6388-6396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole L. Boivin ◽  
Melinda A. Zeder ◽  
Dorian Q. Fuller ◽  
Alison Crowther ◽  
Greger Larson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Human Niche Construction ◽  
Commercial Networks ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Taxonomic Groups ◽  
Spread Of Agriculture ◽  
Anthropogenic Alterations

The exhibition of increasingly intensive and complex niche construction behaviors through time is a key feature of human evolution, culminating in the advanced capacity for ecosystem engineering exhibited by Homo sapiens. A crucial outcome of such behaviors has been the dramatic reshaping of the global biosphere, a transformation whose early origins are increasingly apparent from cumulative archaeological and paleoecological datasets. Such data suggest that, by the Late Pleistocene, humans had begun to engage in activities that have led to alterations in the distributions of a vast array of species across most, if not all, taxonomic groups. Changes to biodiversity have included extinctions, extirpations, and shifts in species composition, diversity, and community structure. We outline key examples of these changes, highlighting findings from the study of new datasets, like ancient DNA (aDNA), stable isotopes, and microfossils, as well as the application of new statistical and computational methods to datasets that have accumulated significantly in recent decades. We focus on four major phases that witnessed broad anthropogenic alterations to biodiversity—the Late Pleistocene global human expansion, the Neolithic spread of agriculture, the era of island colonization, and the emergence of early urbanized societies and commercial networks. Archaeological evidence documents millennia of anthropogenic transformations that have created novel ecosystems around the world. This record has implications for ecological and evolutionary research, conservation strategies, and the maintenance of ecosystem services, pointing to a significant need for broader cross-disciplinary engagement between archaeology and the biological and environmental sciences.

Relaxation of Selection, Niche Construction, and the Baldwin Effect in Language Evolution

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hajime Yamauchi ◽  
Takashi Hashimoto
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Genetic Predisposition ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Baldwin Effect ◽  
Learning Capability ◽  
Linguistic Behavior ◽  
The Baldwin Effect

Deacon has suggested that one of the key factors of language evolution is not characterized by an increase in genetic contribution, often known as the Baldwin effect, but rather by a decrease. This process effectively increases linguistic learning capability by organizing a novel synergy of multiple lower-order functions previously irrelevant to the process of language acquisition. Deacon posits that this transition is not caused by natural selection. Rather, it is due to the relaxation of natural selection. While there are some cases in which relaxation caused by some external factors indeed induces the transition, we do not know what kind of relaxation has worked in language evolution. In this article, a genetic-algorithm-based computer simulation is used to investigate how the niche-constructing aspect of linguistic behavior may trigger the degradation of genetic predisposition related to language learning. The results show that agents initially increase their genetic predisposition for language learning—the Baldwin effect. They create a highly uniform sociolinguistic environment—a linguistic niche construction. This means that later generations constantly receive very similar inputs from adult agents, and subsequently the selective pressure to retain the genetic predisposition is relaxed.

scholarly journals Coordination in theory extension: how Reichenbach can help us understand endogenization in evolutionary biology

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Luchetti
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Mathematical Representations ◽  
Selection Theory ◽  
Semantic Extension ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Functional Extension ◽  
The Right ◽  
Natural Selection Theory

AbstractReichenbach’s early solution to the scientific problem of how abstract mathematical representations can successfully express real phenomena is rooted in his view of coordination. In this paper, I claim that a Reichenbach-inspired, ‘layered’ view of coordination provides us with an effective tool to systematically analyse some epistemic and conceptual intricacies resulting from a widespread theorising strategy in evolutionary biology, recently discussed by Okasha (2018) as ‘endogenization’. First, I argue that endogenization is a form of extension of natural selection theory that comprises three stages: quasi-axiomatisation, functional extension, and semantic extension. Then, I argue that the functional extension of one core principle of natural selection theory, namely, the principle of heritability, requires the semantic extension of the concept of inheritance. This is because the semantic extension of ‘inheritance’ is necessary to establish a novel form of coordination between the principle of heritability and the extended domain of phenomena that it is supposed to represent. Finally, I suggest that—despite the current lack of consensus on the right semantic extension of ‘inheritance’—we can fruitfully understand the reconceptualization of ‘inheritance’ provided by niche construction theorists as the result of a novel form of coordination.

scholarly journals Selección natural y construcción de nicho: una ¿dialéctica? evolucionista

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan R. Álvarez
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Construction Technology ◽  
Selection Theory ◽  
Niche Construction Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
Transformation Processes ◽  
Natural Selection Theory

RESUMENEn el marco del pensamiento evolucionista de los últimos treinta años, la teoría de construcción de nicho ha ido abriéndose paso como una perspectiva opuesta a y complementaria de la teoría de la selección natural en la explicación del proceso evolutivo. El planteamiento que sigue aborda su oposición como un proceso de combinación de principios ecológicos (restrictivos) y técnicos (transformadores) que tienden un puente entre ciencias biológicas y ciencias humanas, basado en una analogía de la técnica que se naturaliza en procesos de trasformación en que los organismos «se trabajan» sus ambientes.PALABRAS CLAVECONSTRUCCIÓN DE NICHO, DIALÉCTICA, ECOLOGÍA, TÉCNICA, SELECCIÓN NATURALABSTRACTWithin the frame of evolutionary thought during the last thirty years, niche construction theory has been gaining ground as an opposed and complementary outlook regarding natural selection theory in the explanation of evolution. The following approach construes their opposition as a combination of ecologic (restrictive) and technologic (transformational) principles that serve as a bridge between biological and human sciences, based on an analogy with technology that is naturalized in terms of transformation processes wherein organisms «do their work on» their environments.KEYWORDSDIALECTICS, ECOLOGY, NATURAL SELECTION, NICHE CONSTRUCTION, TECHNOLOGY

scholarly journals Competition and niche construction in a model of cancer metastasis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimmy J. Qian ◽  
Erol Akçay
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Model ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Cancer Cells ◽  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Cancer Metastasis ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Primary Tumors ◽  
Darwinian Selection ◽  
Potential Explanation ◽  
The Cost

AbstractNiche construction theory states that not only does the environment act on populations to generate Darwinian selection, but organisms reciprocally modify the environment and the sources of natural selection. Cancer cells participate in niche construction as they alter their microenvironments and create pre-metastatic niches; in fact, metastasis is a product of niche construction. Here, we present a mathematical model of niche construction and metastasis. Our model contains producers, which pay a cost to contribute to niche construction that benefits all tumor cells, and cheaters, which reap the benefits without paying the cost. We derive expressions for the conditions necessary for metastasis, showing that the establishment of a mutant lineage that promotes metastasis depends on niche construction specificity and strength of interclonal competition. We identify a tension between the arrival and invasion of metastasis-promoting mutants, where tumors composed only of cheaters remain small but are susceptible to invasion whereas larger tumors containing producers may be unable to facilitate metastasis depending on the level of niche construction specificity. Our results indicate that even if metastatic subclones arise through mutation, metastasis may be hindered by interclonal competition, providing a potential explanation for recent surprising findings that most metastases are derived from early mutants in primary tumors.

Niche Construction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Laland
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Biological Anthropology ◽  
Extended Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Niche Construction Theory ◽  
Ecological Inheritance

Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities and choices, modify their own and each other’s niches. Examples of niche construction include the building of nests, burrows, and mounds and alternation of physical and chemical conditions by animals, and the creation of shade, influencing of wind speed, and alternation of nutrient cycling by plants. Here the “niche” is construed as the set of natural selection pressures to which the population is exposed (discussed in Ecology). By transforming natural selection pressures, niche construction generates feedback in evolution, on a scale hitherto underestimated and in a manner that alters the evolutionary dynamic. Niche construction also plays a critical role in ecology, in which it supports ecosystem engineering and eco-evolutionary feedbacks and, in part, regulates the flow of energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Niche construction theory is the body of formal (e.g., population genetic, population ecology) mathematical theory that explores niche construction’s evolutionary and ecological ramifications. Many organisms construct developmental environments for their offspring or modify environmental states for other descendants, a process known as “ecological inheritance.” In recent years, this ecological inheritance has been widely recognized as a core component of extra-genetic inheritance, and it is central to attempts within evolutionary biology to broaden the concept of heredity beyond transmission genetics. The development of many organisms—and the recurrence of traits across generations—has been found to depend critically on the construction of developmental environments by ancestors. Historically, the study of niche construction has been contentious because theoretical and empirical findings from niche construction theory appear to challenge some orthodox accounts of evolution. Many researchers studying niche construction embrace an alternative perspective in which niche construction is regarded as a fundamental evolutionary process in its own right, as well as a major source of adaptation. This perspective is aligned intellectually with other progressive movements within evolutionary biology that are calling for an extended evolutionary synthesis. In addition to ecology and evolution, niche construction theory has had an impact on a variety of disciplines, including archaeology, biological anthropology, conservation biology, developmental biology, earth sciences, and philosophy of biology.

scholarly journals The neuroscience of primate intellectual evolution: natural selection and passive and intentional niche construction

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1500) ◽  
pp. 2229-2241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsushi Iriki ◽  
Osamu Sakura
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Morphological Changes ◽  
Japanese Macaque ◽  
Molecular Genetic ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Human Primate

We trained Japanese macaque monkeys to use tools, an advanced cognitive function monkeys do not exhibit in the wild, and then examined their brains for signs of modification. Following tool-use training, we observed neurophysiological, molecular genetic and morphological changes within the monkey brain. Despite being ‘artificially’ induced, these novel behaviours and neural connectivity patterns reveal overlap with those of humans. Thus, they may provide us with a novel experimental platform for studying the mechanisms of human intelligence, for revealing the evolutionary path that created these mechanisms from the ‘raw material’ of the non-human primate brain, and for deepening our understanding of what cognitive abilities are and of those that are not uniquely human. On these bases, we propose a theory of ‘intentional niche construction’ as an extension of natural selection in order to reveal the evolutionary mechanisms that forged the uniquely intelligent human brain.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document