The Major Transitions in Evolution

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Maynard Smith ◽  
Eors Szathmary
Keyword(s):  
Full Range ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Major Transitions ◽  
Insect Societies ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Major Transition ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
History Of ◽  
Emergence Of Cooperation ◽  
Multicellular Organisms

Over the history of life there have been several major changes in the way genetic information is organized and transmitted from one generation to the next. These transitions include the origin of life itself, the first eukaryotic cells, reproduction by sexual means, the appearance of multicellular plants and animals, the emergence of cooperation and of animal societies, and the unique language ability of humans. This ambitious book provides the first unified discussion of the full range of these transitions. The authors highlight the similarities between different transitions--between the union of replicating molecules to form chromosomes and of cells to form multicellular organisms, for example--and show how understanding one transition sheds light on others. They trace a common theme throughout the history of evolution: after a major transition some entities lose the ability to replicate independently, becoming able to reproduce only as part of a larger whole. The authors investigate this pattern and why selection between entities at a lower level does not disrupt selection at more complex levels. Their explanation encompasses a compelling theory of the evolution of cooperation at all levels of complexity. Engagingly written and filled with numerous illustrations, this book can be read with enjoyment by anyone with an undergraduate training in biology. It is ideal for advanced discussion groups on evolution and includes accessible discussions of a wide range of topics, from molecular biology and linguistics to insect societies.

Historical and Critical Review on Biophysical Economics

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 63-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yekbun Adigüzel
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Ecology ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Growth Theory ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Biophysical Economics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biological Entities ◽  
Ecological Basis

Biophysical economics is initiated with the long history of the relation of economics with ecological basis and biophysical perspectives of the physiocrats. It inherently has social, economic, biological, environmental, natural, physical, and scientific grounds. Biological entities in economy like the resources, consumers, populations, and parts of production systems, etc. could all be dealt by biophysical economics. Considering this wide scope, current work is a “biophysical economics at a glance” rather than a comprehensive review of the full range of topics that may just be adequately covered in a book-length work. However, the sense of its wide range of applications is aimed to be provided to the reader in this work. Here, modern approaches and biophysical growth theory are presented after the long history and an overview of the concepts in biophysical economics. Examples of the recent studies are provided at the end with discussions. This review is also related to the work by Cleveland, “Biophysical Economics: From Physiocracy to Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology” [C. J. Cleveland, in Advances in Bioeconomics and Sustainability: Essay in Honor of Nicholas Gerogescu-Roegen, eds. J. Gowdy and K. Mayumi (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, England, 1999), pp. 125–154.]. Relevant parts include critics and comments on the presented concepts in a parallelized fashion with the Cleveland’s work.

Origins and Early Evolution of Predation

2002 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 289-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Bengtson
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Record ◽  
Cambrian Explosion ◽  
Major Transitions ◽  
Microbial Ecosystems ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Evolutionary Event ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ultimate Result ◽  
Major Transitions In Evolution ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

Predation, in the broad sense of an organism killing another organism for nutritional purposes, is probably as old as life itself and has originated many times during the history of life. Although little of the beginnings is caught in the fossil record, observations in the rock record and theoretical considerations suggest that predation played a crucial role in some of the major transitions in evolution. The origin of eukaryotic cells, poorly constrained to about 2.7 Ga by geochemical evidence, was most likely the ultimate result of predation among prokaryotes. Multicellularity (or syncytiality), as a means of acquiring larger size, is visible in the fossil record soon after 2 Ga and is likely to have been mainly a response to selective pressure from predation among protists. The appearance of mobile predators on bacteria and protists may date back as far as 2 Ga or it may be not much older than the Cambrian explosion, or about 600 Ma. The combined indications from the decline of stromatolites and the diversification of acritarchs, however, suggest that such predation may have begun around 1 Ga. The Cambrian explosion, culminating around 550 Ma, represents the transition from simple, mostly microbial, ecosystems to ones with complex food webs and second- and higher-order consumers. Macrophagous predators were involved from the beginning, but it is not clear whether they originated in the plankton or in the benthos. Although predation was a decisive selective force in the Cambrian explosion, it was a shaper rather than a trigger of this evolutionary event.

scholarly journals Evolution of Multicellularity

Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1532
Author(s):  
J. Mark Cock
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Major Transitions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multicellular Organisms

The emergence of multicellular organisms was, perhaps, the most spectacular of the major transitions during the evolutionary history of life on this planet [...]

scholarly journals Sociality emerges from solitary behaviours and reproductive plasticity in the orchid bee Euglossa dilemma

2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1906) ◽  
pp. 20190588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas W. Saleh ◽  
Santiago R. Ramírez
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Expression Patterns ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Orchid Bee ◽  
Insect Societies ◽  
Major Transition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Worker Castes

The evolution of eusociality and sterile worker castes represents a major transition in the history of life. Despite this, little is known about the mechanisms involved in the initial transition from solitary to social behaviour. It has been hypothesized that plasticity from ancestral solitary life cycles was coopted to create queen and worker castes in insect societies. Here, we tested this hypothesis by examining gene expression involved in the transition from solitary to social behaviour in the orchid bee Euglossa dilemma . To this end, we conducted observations that allowed us to classify bees into four distinct categories of solitary and social behaviour. Then, by sequencing brain and ovary transcriptomes from these behavioural phases, we identified gene expression changes overlapping with socially associated genes across multiple eusocial lineages. We find that genes involved in solitary E. dilemma ovarian plasticity overlap extensively with genes showing differential expression between fertile and sterile workers—or between queens and workers in other eusocial bees. We also find evidence that sociality in E. dilemma reflects gene expression patterns involved in solitary foraging and non-foraging nest care behaviours. Our results provide strong support for the hypothesis that eusociality emerges from plasticity found across solitary life cycles.

scholarly journals Did Human Culture Emerge in a Cultural Evolutionary Transition in Individuality?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dinah R. Davison ◽  
Claes Andersson ◽  
Richard E. Michod ◽  
Steven L. Kuhn
Keyword(s):  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Major Transitions ◽  
Social Communities ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Multicellular Organisms

AbstractEvolutionary Transitions in Individuality (ETI) have been responsible for the major transitions in levels of selection and individuality in natural history, such as the origins of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms, and eusocial insects. The integrated hierarchical organization of life thereby emerged as groups of individuals repeatedly evolved into new and more complex kinds of individuals. The Social Protocell Hypothesis (SPH) proposes that the integrated hierarchical organization of human culture can also be understood as the outcome of an ETI—one that produced a “cultural organism” (a “sociont”) from a substrate of socially learned traditions that were contained in growing and dividing social communities. The SPH predicts that a threshold degree of evolutionary individuality would have been achieved by 2.0–2.5 Mya, followed by an increasing degree of evolutionary individuality as the ETI unfolded. We here assess the SPH by applying a battery of criteria—developed to assess evolutionary individuality in biological units—to cultural units across the evolutionary history of Homo. We find an increasing agreement with these criteria, which buttresses the claim that an ETI occurred in the cultural realm.

A Holistic Perspective On Student Growth and Development: a Look At Academic Programs in Graduate Schools of Human Service

1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Seelig ◽  
William Eldridge ◽  
Marie Schirtzinger
Keyword(s):  
Human Service ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Academic Programs ◽  
Student Growth ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Holistic Perspective ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic

In the history of higher education's response to the growth and learning needs of students, numerous political, economic, religious and cultural factors have influenced the way students were defined by the institution, and have dictated the range of needs considered legitimate for adult learning. The authors will outline major trends in higher education's history as the full range of psycho logical, social, physical and spiritual needs of students have been variously defined and addressed within traditional academic programs. The authors will also suggest the relevance of a holistic perspective on a wide range of differing needs as this relates particularly to human service professions. Research will be briefly cited to help document one way of assessing the degree to which academic pro grams, in fact, address either a wide or narrow range of needs for growth and learning among students.

scholarly journals The origins of the Acheulean: past and present perspectives on a major transition in human evolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1698) ◽  
pp. 20150245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio de la Torre
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Major Transitions ◽  
Current State ◽  
Major Transition ◽  
Hard Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Origins Research ◽  
Cumulative Knowledge

The emergence of the Acheulean from the earlier Oldowan constitutes a major transition in human evolution, the theme of this special issue. This paper discusses the evidence for the origins of the Acheulean, a cornerstone in the history of human technology, from two perspectives; firstly, a review of the history of investigations on Acheulean research is presented. This approach introduces the evolution of theories throughout the development of the discipline, and reviews the way in which cumulative knowledge led to the prevalent explanatory framework for the emergence of the Acheulean. The second part presents the current state of the art in Acheulean origins research, and reviews the hard evidence for the appearance of this technology in Africa around 1.7 Ma, and its significance for the evolutionary history of Homo erectus . This article is part of the themed issue ‘Major transitions in human evolution’.

scholarly journals Selection for synchronized cell division in simple multicellular organisms

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Olejarz ◽  
Kamran Kaveh ◽  
Carl Veller ◽  
Martin A. Nowak
Keyword(s):  
Cell Division ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Population Model ◽  
Natural Question ◽  
Cell Divisions ◽  
Major Transition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Multicellular Organisms

AbstractThe evolution of multicellularity was a major transition in the history of life on earth. Conditions under which multicellularity is favored have been studied theoretically and experimentally. But since the construction of a multicellular organism requires multiple rounds of cell division, a natural question is whether these cell divisions should be synchronous or not. We study a simple population model in which there compete simple multicellular organisms that grow either by synchronous or asynchronous cell divisions. We demonstrate that natural selection can act differently on synchronous and asynchronous cell division, and we offer intuition for why these phenotypes are generally not neutral variants of each other.

scholarly journals Cooperation, clumping and the evolution of multicellularity

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1813) ◽  
pp. 20151075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay M. Biernaskie ◽  
Stuart A. West
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Multicellular Organisms ◽  
Number Of Cells

The evolution of multicellular organisms represents one of the major evolutionary transitions in the history of life. A potential advantage of forming multicellular clumps is that it provides an efficiency benefit to pre-existing cooperation, such as the production of extracellular ‘public goods’. However, this is complicated by the fact that cooperation could jointly evolve with clumping, and clumping could have multiple consequences for the evolution of cooperation. We model the evolution of clumping and a cooperative public good, showing that (i) when considered separately, both clumping and public goods production gradually increase with increasing genetic relatedness; (ii) in contrast, when the traits evolve jointly, a small increase in relatedness can lead to a major shift in evolutionary outcome—from a non-clumping state with low public goods production to a cooperative clumping state with high values of both traits; (iii) high relatedness makes it easier to get to the cooperative clumping state and (iv) clumping can be inhibited when it increases the number of cells that the benefits of cooperation must be shared with, but promoted when it increases relatedness between those cells. Overall, our results suggest that public goods sharing can facilitate the formation of well-integrated cooperative clumps as a first step in the evolution of multicellularity.

scholarly journals Noise-driven cell differentiation and the emergence of spatiotemporal patterns

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadiseh Safdari ◽  
Ata Kalirad ◽  
Cristian Picioreanu ◽  
Rouzbeh Tusserkani ◽  
Bahram Goliaei ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cell Aggregation ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Major Transitions ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Mechanistic Approach ◽  
Major Transition ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Multicellular Organisms ◽  
Major Transitions In Evolution ◽  
Biological Innovations

AbstractOne of the major transitions in evolution is the step from unicellularity into the brave new world of multicellularity. To understand this feat, one has to fathom two main characteristics of multicellular organisms: differentiation and self-organization. Any explanation concerning this major transition should involve mechanisms that can simultaneously explain the marvellous intricacies manifest in the aforementioned characteristics, and an account of the evolution of such traits. Here we propose a noise-driven differentiation (NDD) model. The reliance on noise, in place of a more mechanistic approach, makes the NDD model a more suitable approach to explain differentiation and self-organization. Furthermore, our model sheds some light on the possible evolutionary origins of these biological innovations. To test the NDD model, we utilize a model of cell aggregation. The behavior of this model of cell aggregation is in concert with the NDD model.

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