Abstract
Natural selection is the populational process whereby, for instance, the relative number of a variant better suited to a given environment’s attributes increases over generations. In other words, a population’s makeup is altered, over generations, to suit the requirements of a particular environment. Niche construction is the process whereby an environment’s attributes can be stably modified by organisms, over generations, to suit requirements of those organisms. Should the latter process, when it occurs, be considered as significant for the complementary fit between organism and environment as the former? According to mainstream evolutionary theory, random genetic mutation is the only source of novel, unlearned, trans-generationally persistent behavior. A growing number of biologists and philosophers of science, however, maintain that organisms are capable of generating such behavior, in response to, for instance, trans-generationally persistent environmental change, by way of phenotype-mediated, developmentally plastic mechanisms that do not require mutation. Should mechanisms of this sort be more generally recognized as the source of the selectable variation that selection operates on? Niche construction theory answers “yes” to both these questions, and the result is a debate over the comprehensiveness of mainstream evolutionary theory.
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Notes
Any biology text’s rendering of evolution will stress that natural selection operates without foresight.
My article provides only brief sketches of what I consider to be the main theses of West-Eberhard (2003). West-Eberhard (2005), referenced only in this footnote, is an introduction to West-Eberhard (2003), but one that contains much in the way of rationale, evidence, and mechanism and is very readable.
Post-translational modification of protein (hereafter PTM) is another such discovery. A modifying group can, practically speaking, create a novel amino acid by altering the chemical and steric aspects of the amino acid to which it attaches, this effectively altering the primary structure of the related protein (Bah and Forman-Kay 2016, p. 6696). PTM has a profound effect on a protein’s function and for getting the protein to the appropriate site in the cell to carry out that function (Reece et al. 2014, pp. 351–352). The more common types of PTM (e.g., phosphorylation, glycosylation, acetylation, etc.) are reversible (Prabakaran et al. 2012, p. 28), this allowing a protein’s on/off-functional state to change as the situation demands. But, also, a protein can acquire a completely different function by a change in the modifying group. For example, a protein structural component of ribosomes, when phosphorylated, moves into the nucleus, taking on the role of an enzyme (Kim et al. 2008), while estrogen receptor, found typically in the nucleus where it functions as a transcription factor, can, when palmitoylated, take up residence at the plasma membrane and involvement in a pathway regulating vasodilation (Adlanmerini et al. 2013). Now, a serine can only be phosphorylated if it is in fact a component amino acid of a protein and for this the information stored in the nucleotide sequence of a structural gene is indispensable. However, just because a serine is there doesn’t mean it will be phosphorylated. Depending on circumstances, it might not be. And when not phosphorylated the serine might be glycosylated. Coordination of modification, especially with respect to timing, encompasses a capacity for “dynamic information processing" and dynamic responsiveness unlike anything the static, one-dimensional nucleotide sequence of a structural gene, including those associated with modifying enzymes, would be capable of (Prabakaran et al. 2012). That extra-genomic factors help regulate PTM (e.g., neuronal electrical activity (Mohapatra et al. 2007; cited in Prabakaran et al. 2012); photosynthesis (Lillo et al. 2004); steroid hormones and day/night cycling (Gupta et al. 2007)) makes the point that orchestration of PTM utilizes an information store broader than that of even a genome.
Steroid hormones are not direct products of genes although their synthesis requires biosynthetic enzymes that mainstream biology would consider to be direct products of genes. However, the steroid hormones themselves regulate transcription of these same genes.
This can be demonstrated by comparing the quote from Gottlieb (2002), found near the end of the previous section, with the two quotes from NCT advocates (Laland and Sterelny 2006; Laland et al. 2015) found near the beginning of that same section. Gottlieb’s quote includes quotes from Laland et al. (2000), written by, arguably, the three-scientist, core constituency of NCT; one of these three co-authored Laland and Sterelny (2006) and all three were among the co-authors of Laland et al. (2015, p.6).
West-Eberhard would not agree that, regarding mutation-triggered behavioral change, mutation should be considered the source of selectable variation or that if the behavior was a niche-constructing activity it would be subordinate to mutation and selection. In West-Eberhard’s scheme, regardless of whether the behavioral change is triggered by mutation or environmental change, the form of the behavior will always reflect the influence of an overarching, responsive phenotype (West-Eberhard 2003, p. 99).
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Mary Jane West-Eberhard for reading an earlier version of this article and making suggestions that were incorporated into the final version and for always taking the time to answer questions I had concerning her work. Thanks to a reviewer for suggestions that improved, considerably, the readability of the article. Thanks to editor Deborah Klosky for graciously accommodating quite a few last-minute adjustments. Thanks to Rui Diogo for a helpful suggestion. Of course, any oversights or misinterpretation of anyone’s work is solely my responsibility.
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Brady, T.P. A Selected Look at Niche Construction Theory Including Its Incorporation of the Notion of Phenotype-Mediated Developmental Plasticity. Biol Theory 18, 20–29 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-022-00418-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-022-00418-w