Laland Kevin, Odling-Smee John, Endler John
Centre for Biological Diversity, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Harold Mitchell Building, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9TH, UK.
Mansfield College, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 3TF, UK.
Interface Focus. 2017 Oct 6;7(5):20160147. doi: 10.1098/rsfs.2016.0147. Epub 2017 Aug 18.
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.
生物体能够改变并选择其局部环境的组成部分。这种“生态位构建”能够改变生态过程、影响自然选择，并通过生态遗产作用于遗传。在此，我们提出生态位构建以一种有序、定向且持续的方式，启动并改变直接影响构建者自身以及其他物种的选择。通过可靠地创造特定的环境状态，生态位构建通过对选择施加一致的统计偏差，共同引导适应性进化。我们通过将生态位构建与人工选择进行比较，来说明它如何产生这种进化偏差。我们认为它处于人工选择和自然选择之间的中间地带。我们展示了这种观点如何得出与以下方面相关的可检验预测：（i）野生环境中对自然选择反应的测量指标方差降低；（ii）多个性状的共同进化，包括性状序列的进化和平行进化模式；以及（iii）生态位构建与生物多样性之间的正相关关系。更一般地说，我们认为进化生物学将受益于对所有选择来源的多样特性给予更多关注。
