Centre for Ecology and Conservation, Biosciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Tremough, Penryn TR10 9EZ, UK.
Centre for Ecology and Conservation, Biosciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Tremough, Penryn TR10 9EZ, UK; School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TW, UK.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2015 Jun;30(6):327-33. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2015.04.002. Epub 2015 May 2.
The development of multicellular organisms involves a delicate interplay between genetic and environmental influences. It is often useful to think of developmental systems as integrating available sources of information about current conditions to produce organisms. Genes and inherited physiology provide cues, as does the state of the environment during development. The integration systems themselves are under genetic control and subject to Darwinian selection, so we expect them to evolve to produce organisms that fit well with current ecological (including social) conditions. We argue for the scientific value of this explicitly informational perspective by providing detailed examples of how it can elucidate taxonomically diverse phenomena. We also present a general framework for linking genetic and phenotypic variation from an informational perspective. This application of Darwinian logic at the organismal level can elucidate genetic influences on phenotypic variation in novel and counterintuitive ways.
多细胞生物的发育涉及遗传和环境影响之间的微妙相互作用。通常，我们可以将发育系统视为整合有关当前条件的可用信息源来生成生物体。基因和遗传生理学提供线索，发育过程中的环境状态也是如此。整合系统本身受遗传控制并受达尔文选择的影响，因此我们期望它们进化以产生与当前生态（包括社会）条件相适应的生物体。我们通过提供详细的例子来说明如何从分类学上阐明多样化的现象，来证明这种明确的信息观点的科学价值。我们还提出了一个从信息角度链接遗传和表型变异的一般框架。这种在生物体水平上应用达尔文逻辑可以以新颖和违反直觉的方式阐明遗传对表型变异的影响。
