Description
Adaptationist Evo-Devo is a practical and inviting guide to one of biology's most vital ongoing conversations: how to explain the diversity of life by connecting natural selection to the developmental processes that make evolution possible. Without calling for a revolution or declaring anything broken, Olson gently maps out an expansive way forward, one grounded in mutual regard for the different ways biologists approach the problem of form. Rather than dividing the field into theoretical camps, the book shows how combining the strengths of population biology, comparative biology, developmental analysis, optimality modeling, and physiology leads to clearer questions and better-supported explanations. For anyone unsure how to link variation, heritability, fitness, and possibility into a coherent picture, this book celebrates the common ground, shared interests, and collaborative potential across evolutionary biology and ecology. Through vivid examples, from humble goldfish to radish flowers and butterflies to scaling laws, it shows how to move from assumption to evidence, how to navigate tricky ideas like "constraint" and plasticity, how to manage biological metaphors and to sidestep the traps of false dichotomies. Rather than a winner between "adaptation" and "development," the book offers a shared toolkit that quietly dissolves the need for choosing sides.Adaptationist Evo-Devo makes the case that evolutionary biology works best when its practitioners listen across subfields, and it offers a common language to help them do exactly that.
Table of Contents
ContentsIntroductionChapter 1 Standard Adaptation1.1 The three conditions necessary for observing natural selection. 1. Variation1.2 The three conditions necessary for observing natural selection. 2. Heritability1.3 The three conditions necessary for observing natural selection. 3. Fitness1.3.1 Survivorship1.3.2 Mating success1.3.3 Fecundity1.3.4 Interaction among the components of fitness1.4 The “force” of natural selection is metaphorical1.5 Sorting versus selection1.6 Watch out for “selection in constraint's clothing”1.7 Beware the ad hoc hypothesis1.8 What constitutes a selective pressure? Generation time and recurrence1.9 Measuring fitness empirically1.10 The importance of energetic efficiency in postulating fitness differences1.11 There can be multiple favored configurations and multiple “functions”1.11.1 “The” favored configuration or configurations1.11.2 “The” function of a biological feature1.12 “Continuous” variation: the main reaction point for adaptationist evo-devo1.13 Standard adaptation case studies 1.13.1 Standard selection case studies: mammalian long bone-body mass relations1.13.2 Standard selection case studies: the human female orgasm1.13.3 Standard selection case studies: developmental bias1.13.4 Congratulations on expertly adaptationizing1.14 Benefits of being an expert adaptationist (and dangers of not being one) 1.14.1 Macroevolution that isn't1.14.2 Biological metaphors: interspecific “competition,” “stress,” and environmental “filtering”1.15 Helpfulness is a helpful criterionChapter 2 Developmental potential and adaptation2.1 Motivating adaptationist evo-devo: limited variation2.1.1 Examples of limited variation: Always odd segment number in geophilomorph centipedes2.1.2 Examples of limited variation: The pentadactyl hand2.1.3 Examples of limited variation: The mystery of synapomorphy2.1.4 Examples of limited variation: Tradeoffs2.1.5 Examples of limited variation: Shared developmental cascades2.2 Developmental potential (evolvability)2.3 Adaptationist evo-devo case studies: layers of evidence, not “full proof” in a single study2.3.1 Arabidopsis directed mutagenesis2.3.2 Radish flower artificial selection2.3.3 Domesticated dogs2.3.4 Domesticated goldfish2.3.5 Domesticated and feral pigeon legs2.3.6 The architecture of organismal circulatory systems 2.3.7 Fly micro-surgery2.3.8 Mammalian long bone scaling2.3.9 You can't get there from here: Erika Edwards's activation energy metaphor2.3.10 Drosophila flight performance maneuvering around panadaptationism2.3.11 Butterfly wing proportionalities2.3.12 Eppendorf tube flowers, 3D printed insects, and virtual morphospaces2.3.13 Seven cervical vertebrae2.3.14 Drosophila sex combs2.3.15 Carotenoid-based coloration in birds: selection acting in a finite space of possibilities2.4 Toward complementarityChapter 3 Evolution and developmental systems3.1 Everyone knows that genes alone aren't sufficient for inheritance3.2 Everyone knows that there is no straightforward connection between genotype and phenotype3.3 The contradiction that sticks in the craw of the genes-aren't everythingers3.4 If genes are causal agents, it should be possible to recognize them3.4.1 Mitochondrial ATPase subunits 6 and 8 in humans and mice3.4.2 Human and mouse INK4A/ARF3.4.3 IP259/DUb80 in Drosophila 3.4.4 Gene expression in trypanosomes3.4.5 Slowpoke in chickens, Dscam in fruit flies 3.4.6 The point of these examples3.5 Moving toward common ground: unresolved phylogenies and missing heritability3.5.1 Missing phylogenetic resolution3.5.2 Missing heritability3.6 Developmental resources and causal parity3.6.1 Opn, photons, and eye development3.6.2 Vitamin C3.6.3 Carnivorous vs. “proto-carnivorous” plants3.6.4 Duckling auditory development3.6.5 Parity of necessariness3.7 Distributed causation and three analogies of the genome3.7.1 The automobile engine analogy3.7.2 The analogy of the army general3.7.3 The analogy of digital music files3.8 DNA contains information: yes and no3.9 No plan in development3.10 Reliability of recruitment is what makes a resource3.11 Natural selection as the biasing of development3.12 Heritability as the reconstruction of the parental phenotype in development3.13 Inheritance involving more than genes3.14 Niche construction3.15 The unit of inheritance as the developmental system and “evolution” as change in the developmental system 3.16 Order without bosses: Deborah Gordon's work on ants3.17 The physical properties of biological materials in development: more common ground3.18 A systems exercise3.19 Systems biology3.19.1 Systems biology insights: network architecture3.19.2 Systems biology insights: modularity3.19.3 Systems biology insights: robustness3.19.4 Systems biology insights: causal parity, again3.19.5 Systems: an attractor for all of biology3.20 Genetic “eppur si muove”3.20.1 Genetic causation residing in unseen antecedent steps3.20.2 Genetic backfill3.20.3 Environmental cues versus developmental resources3.21 What a developmental systems perspective means for adaptationist evo-devo3.21.1 Relaxing and expanding the notion of inheritance and the unit of inheritance3.21.2 Where the limits of developmental systems lie3.21.3 Expanding the causes of developmental potential and “mutation”3.21.4 The term “phenotype”3.22 A developmental systems view is not required for adaptationist evo-devo, and more common groundChapter 4 Understanding phenotypic plasticity and its role in evolution4.1 What phenotypic plasticity is4.2 Phenotypic plasticity is exclusively adaptive 4.3 What is really meant by the plastic-genetic distinction4.4 No species is maximally plastic4.5 Clarifying “maladaptive plasticity” 4.6 Change in developmental system, change in outcome4.7 “Mere plasticity”: when plasticity is important and when it isn't in a functional explanation4.8 “Phenotype” and “environment” sensu lato4.9 Phenotypic accommodation: the other side of the plasticity coin4.9.1 Phenotypic accommodation in trees and termite mounds4.9.2 Phenotypic accommodation and human stunting4.10 Phenotypic plasticity and accommodation and novel phenotypes4.11 Plasticity-first, genes-as followers evolution4.11.1 Unusual developmental outcomes can also be assimilated4.12 What does plasticity-first evolution mean for well-supported explanations of organismal form? Chapter 5 Building adaptationist evo-devo explanations of organismal form5.1 The sources of empirical evidence: comparative, populational, optimality, and developmental potential5.1.1 Source of empirical evidence: comparative method5.1.2 Source of empirical evidence: population biology5.1.3 Source of empirical evidence: optimality models5.1.4 Source of empirical evidence: developmental potential5.1.4.1 Manipulation5.1.4.2 Embryology 5.1.4.3 The comparative method5.2 Generative assumptions and complementarity between sources of empirical evidence5.2.1 Populational weakness, comparative strength5.2.2 Comparative weakness, populational strength5.2.3 Essential complementarity of methods5.2.4 A (spurious) case can be made for the supremacy of any method5.3 Assumptions and just-so stories 5.4 Moving from assumptions to evidence5.5 Untestable limits and historical assumptions5.6 Assumptions are part of even the best-supported evolutionary explanation5.7 Key clauses and loopholes in the fine print of evolutionary explanation5.7.1 No smoking guns5.7.2 The structure of a robust explanation--descriptive not proscriptive5.7.3 Putting the “deductive” in the hypothetico-deductive method5.7.4 Ceteris paribus5.7.5 Teleology, licensed and not5.7.6 “Progress” in phylogenies 5.7.7 Underdetermination5.7.8 False dichotomies5.7.8.1 Dichotomies as tools of convenience. 5.7.9 Managing metaphors5.7.9.1 Metaphor diagnostics5.7.9.2 The “adaptive landscape” metaphor5.7.9.3 The “genetic blueprint” metaphor5.7.10 Pattern versus process and the descriptive substitution fallacy: “phylogenetic inertia” and “niche conservatism”5.8 Real macroevolution5.9. “Explained by selection” or “explained by developmental constraint”5.9.1 “Explained by selection” 5.9.2 “Explained by constraint” 5.9.3 Extremes of a continuum: convergence versus parallelism5.9.4 “Contingency” versus selection5.9.5 The adaptation-constraint/contingency dichotomies as a question of scale5.10 Understanding the Spandrels paper5.10.1 The central analogy of Spandrels was a perfect illustration of selection 5.10.2 True spandrels illustrate issues of trait delimitation, not “constraint”5.10.3 Spandrels can be exapted, but not all exaptations are spandrels5.11 Conclusion: explanation and complementarityChapter 6 Conclusion: Working together to build better explanations of organismal form6.1 Adaptationist evo-devo precepts6.1.1 Standard adaptationist accounts are non-trivial6.1.2 Exploring developmental potential is a key aspect of explanations of organismal form6.1.3 Developmental systems: small to large changes in research programs6.1.4 Phenotypic plasticity as an adaptive phenomenon6.1.5 Building explanations of organismal form: working together6.1.5.1 Common ground: Complementarity of methods6.1.5.2 Common ground: Disputes over relative importance, not wholesale disqualification6.1.5.3 Common ground: Systems biology6.1.5.4 Common ground: Order for free6.1.5.5 Common ground: What is possible and what it not in development6.1.5.6 Common ground: Universal regard for empirical data6.1.5.7 Common ground: The grain of research focus6.1.6 Just-so stories can be developmental as well as adaptationist, and they're not so bad.6.1.7 From buzzwords to bedrock6.2 “Adaptation vs. constraint” and alternative vocabulary6.3 The most useful false dichotomyGlossary
