The evolution of complexity without natural selection, a possible large-scale trend of the fourth kind

Paleobiology ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (sp5) ◽  
pp. 146-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. McShea
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Evolution Of Complexity ◽  
Fourth Kind

scholarly journals Genome size correlates with reproductive fitness in seed beetles

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1815) ◽  
pp. 20151421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Arnqvist ◽  
Ahmed Sayadi ◽  
Elina Immonen ◽  
Cosima Hotzy ◽  
Daniel Rankin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Genome Size ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Life History Traits ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Reproductive Fitness ◽  
Correlated Evolution ◽  
Seed Beetles

The ultimate cause of genome size (GS) evolution in eukaryotes remains a major and unresolved puzzle in evolutionary biology. Large-scale comparative studies have failed to find consistent correlations between GS and organismal properties, resulting in the ‘ C -value paradox’. Current hypotheses for the evolution of GS are based either on the balance between mutational events and drift or on natural selection acting upon standing genetic variation in GS. It is, however, currently very difficult to evaluate the role of selection because within-species studies that relate variation in life-history traits to variation in GS are very rare. Here, we report phylogenetic comparative analyses of GS evolution in seed beetles at two distinct taxonomic scales, which combines replicated estimation of GS with experimental assays of life-history traits and reproductive fitness. GS showed rapid and bidirectional evolution across species, but did not show correlated evolution with any of several indices of the relative importance of genetic drift. Within a single species, GS varied by 4–5% across populations and showed positive correlated evolution with independent estimates of male and female reproductive fitness. Collectively, the phylogenetic pattern of GS diversification across and within species in conjunction with the pattern of correlated evolution between GS and fitness provide novel support for the tenet that natural selection plays a key role in shaping GS evolution.

The Simulated Evolution of Biochemical Guilds: Reconciling Gaia Theory and Natural Selection

1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Downing ◽  
Peter Zvirinsky
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Resource Competition ◽  
Nutrient Recycling ◽  
Nutrient Ratios ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Life Model ◽  
Gaia Theory ◽  
Implicit Coordination

Gaia theory, which states that organisms both affect and regulate their environment, poses an interesting problem to Neo-Darwinian evolutionary biologists and provides an exciting set of phenomena for artificial-life investigation. The key challenge is to explain the emergence of biotic communities that are capable, via their implicit coordination, of regulating large-scale biogeochemical factors such as the temperature and chemical composition of the biosphere, but to assume no evolutionary mechanisms beyond contemporary natural selection. Along with providing an introduction to Gaia theory, this article presents simulations of Gaian emergence based on an artificial-life model involving genetic algorithms and guilds of simple metabolizing agents. In these simulations, resource competition leads to guild diversity; the ensemble of guilds then manifests life-sustaining nutrient recycling and exerts distributed control over environmental nutrient ratios. These results illustrate that standard individual-based natural selection is sufficient to explain Gaian self-organization, and they help clarify the relationships between two key metrics of Gaian activity: recycling and regulation.

scholarly journals A Simple Model of Unbounded Evolutionary Versatility as a Largest-Scale Trend in Organismal Evolution

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. Turney
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Simple Model ◽  
Computational Model ◽  
Local Adaptation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Changing Environment ◽  
Local Environments ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Evolutionary Pace ◽  
Biological Organisms

The idea that there are any large-scale trends in the evolution of biological organisms is highly controversial. It is commonly believed, for example, that there is a large-scale trend in evolution towards increasing complexity, but empirical and theoretical arguments undermine this belief. Natural selection results in organisms that are well adapted to their local environments, but it is not clear how local adaptation can produce a global trend. In this paper, I present a simple computational model, in which local adaptation to a randomly changing environment results in a global trend towards increasing evolutionary versatility. In this model, for evolutionary versatility to increase without bound, the environment must be highly dynamic. The model also shows that unbounded evolutionary versatility implies an accelerating evolutionary pace. I believe that unbounded increase in evolutionary versatility is a large-scale trend in evolution. I discuss some of the testable predictions about organismal evolution that are suggested by the model.

scholarly journals Genome-Wide Natural Selection Signatures Are Linked to Genetic Risk of Modern Phenotypes in the Japanese Population

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 1306-1316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiaki Yasumizu ◽  
Saori Sakaue ◽  
Takahiro Konuma ◽  
Ken Suzuki ◽  
Koichi Matsuda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Japanese Population ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Genome Wide Association Study ◽  
Enrichment Analysis ◽  
Recent Common Ancestor ◽  
Selection Signatures ◽  
Most Recent Common Ancestor ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
A Genome

Abstract Elucidation of natural selection signatures and relationships with phenotype spectra is important to understand adaptive evolution of modern humans. Here, we conducted a genome-wide scan of selection signatures of the Japanese population by estimating locus-specific time to the most recent common ancestor using the ascertained sequentially Markovian coalescent (ASMC), from the biobank-based large-scale genome-wide association study data of 170,882 subjects. We identified 29 genetic loci with selection signatures satisfying the genome-wide significance. The signatures were most evident at the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) gene cluster locus at 4q23 (PASMC = 2.2 × 10−36), followed by relatively strong selection at the FAM96A (15q22), MYOF (10q23), 13q21, GRIA2 (4q32), and ASAP2 (2p25) loci (PASMC < 1.0 × 10−10). The additional analysis interrogating extended haplotypes (integrated haplotype score) showed robust concordance of the detected signatures, contributing to fine-mapping of the genes, and provided allelic directional insights into selection pressure (e.g., positive selection for ADH1B-Arg48His and HLA-DPB1*04:01). The phenome-wide selection enrichment analysis with the trait-associated variants identified a variety of the modern human phenotypes involved in the adaptation of Japanese. We observed population-specific evidence of enrichment with the alcohol-related phenotypes, anthropometric and biochemical clinical measurements, and immune-related diseases, differently from the findings in Europeans using the UK Biobank resource. Our study demonstrated population-specific features of the selection signatures in Japanese, highlighting a value of the natural selection study using the nation-wide biobank-scale genome and phenotype data.

Species selection and driven mechanisms jointly generate a large-scale morphological trend in monobathrid crinoids

Paleobiology ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Time Scales ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Inverse Correlation ◽  
Species Selection ◽  
Diversification Rate ◽  
Systematic Change ◽  
Change In The Mean ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Over Time

All evolution attributable to natural selection, at any level, is due to a causal covariance between fitness and phenotype. Over macroevolutionary time scales, species selection is one of many possible mechanisms for generating large-scale morphological trends. For species selection to sort morphology, a correlation between morphology and taxonomic diversification rate must be present. Other trend mechanisms (driven mechanisms, e.g., a bias in the direction of speciation) produce a systematic change in the mean phenotype over time. All mechanisms can co-occur. Here I demonstrate (1) an inverse correlation between diversification rate and calyx complexity that demonstrates the effect of species selection on morphology. Genera with simple calyces tend to increase in diversity, whereas genera with complex calyces have a net decrease in diversity; and (2) the presence of a driven trend mechanism in monobathrid crinoids where descendant genera tend to be simpler than their ancestors. The separate effects of these two classes of trend mechanisms can be combined by using the Price's Theorem, which partitions the contribution to the overall change in calyx complexity over time accurately among selection and driven mechanisms. Price's Theorem provides significant conceptual and methodological clarification of the contribution of multiple and interacting hierarchical mechanisms in generating large-scale trends.

Full Body: The Importance of the Phenotype in Evolution

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Kampis ◽  
László Gulyás
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Part D ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Evolution Of Complexity ◽  
General Relevance ◽  
Competition Avoidance ◽  
Functional Factors ◽  
Evolution Modeling ◽  
Full Body

This is a position paper on phenotype-based evolution modeling. It argues that evolutionary complexity is essentially a functional kind of complexity, and for it to evolve, a full body, or, in other words, a dynamically defined, deeply structured, and plasticity-bound phenotype is required. In approaching this subject, we ask and answer some key questions, which we think are interrelated. The questions we discuss and the answers we propose are: (a) How should complexity growth be measured or operationalized in natural and artificial systems? Evolutionary complexity is akin to that of machines, and to operationalize it, we need to study how machinelike organismic functions work and develop. Inspired by studies on causality, we propose the notion of mechanism. A mechanism is a simplified causal system that carries out a function. A growth of functional complexity involves interconversions between a deep (or unused) process and that of a mechanism. (b) Are the principles of natural selection, as they are currently understood, sufficient to explain the evolution of complexity? Our answer is strongly negative. Natural selection helps adapting mechanisms to carry out a given task, but will not generate a task. Hence there is a tradeoff between available tasks and mechanisms fulfilling them. To escape, we argue that competition avoidance is required for new complexity to emerge. (c) What are the environmental constraints on complexity growth in living systems? We think these constraints arise from the structure of the coevolving ecological system, and the basic frames are given by the niche structure. We consider the recently popular idea of niche construction and relate it to the plasticity of the phenotype. We derive a form of phenotype plasticity from the hidden (unused) and explicit (functional) factors discussed in the causality part. (d) What are the main hypotheses about complexity growth that can actually be tested? We hypothesize that a rich natural phenotype that supports causality-function conversions is a necessary ingredient of complexity growth. We review our work on the FATINT system, which incorporates similar ideas in a computer simulation, and shows that full-body phenotypes are sufficient for achieving functional evolution. (e) What language is most appropriate for speaking about the evolution of complexity in living systems? FATINT is developed using advanced agent-based modeling techniques, and we discuss the general relevance of this methodology for understanding and simulating the phenomena discussed.

scholarly journals Antigenic Evolution on a Global Scale Reveals the Potential Natural Selection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus 2 by Pre-existing Cross-Reactive T-Cell Immunity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengdong Zhang ◽  
Xuanxuan Jin ◽  
Xianyang Chen ◽  
Li Qiu ◽  
Qibin Leng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
T Cell ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Nonstructural Protein ◽  
Protein Docking ◽  
Host Cells ◽  
Host Immune System ◽  
Cell Immunity ◽  
Community Transmission

The mutation pattern of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has changed constantly during worldwide community transmission of this virus. However, the reasons for the changes in mutation patterns are still unclear. Accordingly, in this study, we present a comprehensive analysis of over 300 million peptides derived from 13,432 SARS-CoV-2 strains harboring 4,420 amino acid mutations to analyze the potential selective pressure of the host immune system and reveal the driver of mutations in circulating SARS-CoV-2 isolates. The results showed that the nonstructural protein ORF1ab and the structural protein Spike were most susceptible to mutations. Furthermore, mutations in cross-reactive T-cell epitopes between SARS-CoV-2 and seasonal human coronavirus may help SARS-CoV-2 to escape cellular immunity under long-term and large-scale community transmission. Additionally, through homology modeling and protein docking, mutations in Spike protein may enhance the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to invade host cells and escape antibody-mediated B-cell immunity. Our research provided insights into the potential mutation patterns of SARS-CoV-2 under natural selection, improved our understanding of the evolution of the virus, and established important guidance for potential vaccine design.

scholarly journals Eco-Translatology Perspective on the English Translation of Subtitles in the Documentary Eight Hundred Years of Chu State

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. p5
Author(s):  
Zhang Shuyue ◽  
Wang Feng
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Chinese Traditional Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Translation Methods ◽  
Interdisciplinary Theory

Based on the concept of translational eco-environment, oriental ecological wisdom, and the Darwinian principle of natural selection, the concepts of eco-translatology and relevant theoretical ideas were proposed and explained by Professor Hu Gengshen from 2001 on. This interdisciplinary theory of translation studies and ecology considers translation as a translator's adaptation and selection activities, and its translation methods include the linguistic, cultural, and communication aspects. Eight Hundred Years of Chu State is a large-scale documentary about Chu culture. It systematically tells about the great history of the 800 years of Chu State, interpreting the brilliant and splendid civilization of Chu with its magnificent cultural relics, and revealing the laws worth pondering behind its ups and downs. Taking as examples the Chinese-English subtitle translations of the documentary Eight Hundred Years of Chu State, this paper aims to take the interdisciplinary theoretical perspective of eco-translatology to explore its implications for documentary translation from the linguistic, cultural, and communicative dimensions. Aiming also to improve the English translation of Chinese-made documentaries to a higher level, this paper hopes to promote the spread of Chinese traditional culture, especially Jingchu culture, and to enhance the world's understanding of China and its splendid culture.

scholarly journals A Tutorial of the Poisson Random Field Model in Population Genetics

2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Praveen Sethupathy ◽  
Sridhar Hannenhalli
Keyword(s):  
Population Genetics ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Random Field ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Genomic Region ◽  
Mathematical Framework ◽  
Evolutionary Forces ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Frequency Changes

Population genetics is the study of allele frequency changes driven by various evolutionary forces such as mutation, natural selection, and random genetic drift. Although natural selection is widely recognized as a bona-fide phenomenon, the extent to which it drives evolution continues to remain unclear and controversial. Various qualitative techniques, or so-called “tests of neutrality”, have been introduced to detect signatures of natural selection. A decade and a half ago, Stanley Sawyer and Daniel Hartl provided a mathematical framework, referred to as the Poisson random field (PRF), with which to determine quantitatively the intensity of selection on a particular gene or genomic region. The recent availability of large-scale genetic polymorphism data has sparked widespread interest in genome-wide investigations of natural selection. To that end, the original PRF model is of particular interest for geneticists and evolutionary genomicists. In this article, we will provide a tutorial of the mathematical derivation of the original Sawyer and Hartl PRF model.

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