Projects per year
Abstract
Organisms modify and choose components of their local environments. This 'niche construction' can alter ecological processes, modify natural selection and contribute to inheritance through ecological legacies. Here, we propose that niche construction initiates and modifies the selection directly affecting the constructor, and on other species, in an orderly, directed and sustained manner. By dependably generating specific environmental states, niche construction co-directs adaptive evolution by imposing a consistent statistical bias on selection. We illustrate how niche construction can generate this evolutionary bias by comparing it with artificial selection. We suggest that it occupies the middle ground between artificial and natural selection. We show how the perspective leads to testable predictions related to: (i) reduced variance in measures of responses to natural selection in the wild; (ii) multiple trait coevolution, including the evolution of sequences of traits and patterns of parallel evolution; and (iii) a positive association between niche construction and biodiversity. More generally, we submit that evolutionary biology would benefit from greater attention to the diverse properties of all sources of selection.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 20160147 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Interface Focus |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 5 |
Early online date | 18 Aug 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 6 Oct 2017 |
Keywords
- Niche construction
- Trait coevolution
- Adaptive evolution
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Dive into the research topics of 'Niche construction, sources of selection and trait coevolution'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Putting the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis to the Test
Lala, K. (PI)
1/09/16 → 31/05/19
Project: Standard
Datasets
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Supplementary Data from Niche construction, sources of selection and trait coevolution
Laland, K. N. (Creator), Odling-Smee, J. (Creator) & Endler, J. (Creator), Figshare, 8 Aug 2017
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.5285293.v1
Dataset