extended evolutionary synthesis
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Author(s):  
Barbara L. Finlay

Understanding the adaptive functions of increasing brain size have occupied scientists for decades. Here, taking the general perspective of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, the question of how brains change in size will be considered in two developmental frameworks. The first framework will consider the particular developmental mechanisms that control and generate brain mass, concentrating on neurogenesis in a comparative vertebrate context. The consequences of limited adult neurogenesis in mammals, and the dominating role of duration of neurogenesis for mammalian evolution will be discussed for the particular case of the teleost versus mammalian retina, and for paths of brain evolution more generally. The second framework examines brain mass in terms of life history, particularly the features of life history that correlate highly, if imperfectly, with brain mass, including duration of development to adolescence, duration of parental care, body and range size, and longevity. This covariation will be examined in light of current work on genetic causes and consequences of covariation in craniofacial bone groupings. The eventual development of a multivariate structure for understanding brain evolution which specifically integrates formerly separate layers of analysis is the ultimate goal.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael K Skinner ◽  
Eric E Nilsson

Abstract The current evolutionary biology theory primarily involves genetic alterations and random DNA sequence mutations to generate the phenotypic variation required for Darwinian natural selection to act. This neo-Darwinian evolution is termed the Modern Evolution Synthesis and has been the primary paradigm for nearly 100 years. Although environmental factors have a role in neo-Darwinian natural selection, Modern Evolution Synthesis does not consider environment to impact the basic molecular processes involved in evolution. An Extended Evolutionary Synthesis has recently developed that extends the modern synthesis to consider non-genetic processes. Over the past few decades, environmental epigenetics research has been demonstrated to regulate genetic processes and directly generate phenotypic variation independent of genetic sequence alterations. Therefore, the environment can on a molecular level through non-genetic (i.e. epigenetic) mechanisms directly influence phenotypic variation, genetic variation, inheritance and adaptation. This direct action of the environment to alter phenotype that is heritable is a neo-Lamarckian concept that can facilitate neo-Darwinian (i.e. Modern Synthesis) evolution. The integration of genetics, epigenetics, Darwinian theory, Lamarckian concepts, environment, and epigenetic inheritance provides a paradigm shift in evolution theory. The role of environmental-induced epigenetic transgenerational inheritance in evolution is presented to describe a more unified theory of evolutionary biology.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Svensson

The last decades have seen frequent calls for a more extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) that will supposedly overcome the limitations in the current evolutionary framework with its intellectual roots in the Modern Synthesis (MS). Some radical critics even want to entirely abandon the current evolutionary framework, claiming that the MS (often erroneously labelled “Neo-Darwinism”) is outdated, and will soon be replaced by an entirely new framework, such as the Third Way of Evolution (TWE). Such criticisms are not new, but have repeatedly re-surfaced every decade since the formation of the MS, and were particularly articulated by developmental biologist Conrad Waddington and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Waddington, Gould and later critics argued that the MS was too narrowly focused on genes and natural selection, and that it ignored developmental processes, epigenetics, paleontology and macroevolutionary phenomena. More recent critics partly recycle these old arguments and argue that non-genetic inheritance, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and developmental bias necessitate major revision of evolutionary theory. Here I discuss these supposed challenges, taking a historical perspective and tracing these arguments back to Waddington and Gould. I dissect the old arguments by Waddington, Gould and more recent critics that the MS was excessively gene centric and became increasingly “hardened” over time and narrowly focused on natural selection. Recent critics have consciously or unconsciously exaggerated the long-lasting influence of the MS on contemporary evolutionary biology and have underestimated many post-Synthesis developments, particularly Neutral Theory and evolutionary quantitative genetics. Critics have also painted a biased picture of the MS as a more monolithic research tradition than it ever was, and have downplayed the pluralistic nature of contemporary evolutionary biology, particularly the long-lasting influence of Sewall Wright with his emphasis on gene interactions and stochasticity. Finally, I outline and visualize the conceptually split landscape of contemporary evolutionary biology, with four different stably coexisting analytical frameworks: adaptationism, mutationism, neutralism and selectionism. I suggest that the field can accommodate the challenges raised by critics, although structuralism (“EvoDevo”) and macroevolution remain to be conceptually integrated within mainstream evolutionary theory.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 415-440
Author(s):  
Sy Garte

Nowoczesna synteza neodarwinowska (NDMS — neo-Darwinian modern synthesis) przez kilkadziesiąt lat stanowiła podstawę teorii ewolucji. Okazało się jednak, że NDMS ma swoje ograniczenia, a jej ustalenia są nieaktualne w odniesieniu do różnych obszarów badań biologicznych. Nowa, rozszerzona synteza ewolucyjna (EES — extended evolutionary synthesis), uwzględniająca bardziej złożone interakcje między genomami, komórkami a środowiskiem, umożliwia ponowną ocenę wielu założeń NDMS. Do standardowego paradygmatu zakładającego, że głównym mechanizmem zmienności biologicznej jest powolna kumulacja losowych mutacji punktowych, należy teraz dołączyć nowe dane oraz koncepcje symbiozy, duplikacji genu, horyzontalnego transferu genów, retrotranspozycji, epigenetycznych sieci kontrolnych, tworzenia nisz, mutacji warunkowanych środowiskowo i wielkoskalowej reinżynierii genomu w odpowiedzi na bodźce środowiskowe. Otwarcie myśli ewolucjonistycznej na szersze i bardziej ekscytujące spojrzenie na wielką teorię Darwina może nieść konsekwencje dla wiary chrześcijańskiej.


Author(s):  
Francesco Suman

Homo sapiens’ life history pattern possesses both fast and slow components, in a combination that is unique among the extant great apes. One of the issues debated in current evolutionary research is the role played by phenotypic plasticity as a non-genetic means of adaptation to evolutionary challenges. While life history parameters are shaped at a species level by genetic adaptations via natural selection, they remain very sensitive to changes in the environment. Relying on updated evidence and on key explanatory tools of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (phenotypic plasticity, niche construction, and inclusive inheritance), it is likely that environmentally induced plasticity led the way in human life history evolution, promoting subsequent genetic accommodation. To the extent that culturally transmitted behaviors altered the selective pressures that acted on life history traits across generations during human evolution, a culturally driven plasticity dynamic shaping human life history traits can be identified. Two case studies in particular are discussed: the human adaptations to the domestication of fire and the self-domestication hypothesis.


Biosemiotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schaetzle ◽  
Yogi Hendlin

AbstractDenis Noble convincingly describes the artifacts of theory building in the Modern Synthesis as having been surpassed by the available evidence, indicating more active and less gene-centric evolutionary processes than previously thought. We diagnosis the failure of theory holders to dutifully update their beliefs according to new findings as a microcosm of the prevailing larger social inability to deal with competing paradigms. For understanding life, Noble suggests that there is no privileged level of semiotic interpretation. Understanding multi-level semiosis along with organism and environment contrapunctally, according to Jakob von Uexküll’s theoretical biology, can contribute to the emerging extended evolutionary synthesis.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose Trappes ◽  
Behzad Nematipour ◽  
Marie I. Kaiser ◽  
Ulrich Krohs ◽  
Koen J. van Benthem ◽  
...  

The debate between the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) and the modern synthesis (MS) partly relies on different interpretations of niche construction. We dissect the umbrella term of niche construction into three separate mechanisms: niche construction (taken in a narrow sense), in which individuals make changes to the environment; niche choice, in which individuals select an environment; and niche conformance, in which individuals change their phenotypes. Each of these individual-level mechanisms affects an individual’s phenotype-environment match, its fitness, and its individualized niche, defined in terms of the environmental conditions under which an individual can survive and reproduce. Our conceptual framework distinguishes several ways in which individuals alter the selective regimes that they and other organisms experience. It also places clear emphasis on individual differences and construes niche construction and other processes as evolved mechanisms. We therefore argue that our framework helps to resolve the tensions between EES and MS.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Koen B. Tanghe ◽  
Lieven Pauwels ◽  
Alexis De Tiège ◽  
Johan Braeckman

Traditionally, Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) is largely identified with his analysis of the structure of scientific revolutions. Here, we contribute to a minority tradition in the Kuhn literature by interpreting the history of evolutionary biology through the prism of the entire historical developmental model of sciences that he elaborates in The Structure. This research not only reveals a certain match between this model and the history of evolutionary biology but, more importantly, also sheds new light on several episodes in that history, and particularly on the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), the construction of the modern evolutionary synthesis, the chronic discontent with it, and the latest expression of that discontent, called the extended evolutionary synthesis. Lastly, we also explain why this kind of analysis hasn’t been done before.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasmus Skern-Mauritzen ◽  
Thomas Nygaard Mikkelsen

Life is information dancing through time, embedded in matter and shaped by natural selection. Few biologists or philosophers concerned with evolution would object to this description. This apparent accord could be taken to indicate universal agreement on the forces shaping evolution; but the devil is in the details and disagreement is apparent if one looks behind the curtain. The decade strong prevalent paradigm of the Modern Synthesis holds the position that evolution happens by random changes and natural selection acting on genomic inheritance. But there is a new kid on the block; the proponents of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis argue that inheritance is more than genomes and includes epigenetic information, niche constructs (ranging from the meerkats dens to humans railroads) and culture among other factors – and that these factors are both inheritance and a force shaping evolution. Here we introduce The Information Continuum Hypothesis of Evolution; a conceptual framework that focus on the inherited information rather than the diverse representations this inherited information may have (DNA, RNA, epigenetic markers, proteins, culture etc.). As a tool we introduce the concept “hereditome” to describe the combined inherited representations of information. We believe this framework may help bridge the apparent gap between the Modern Synthesis and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.


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