Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, Université de Montpellier, 34095 Montpellier, France
Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2017 Dec 5;372(1735). doi: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0414.
Innovations are generally unexpected, often spectacular changes in phenotypes and ecological functions. The contributions to this theme issue are the latest conceptual, theoretical and experimental developments, addressing how ecology, environment, ontogeny and evolution are central to understanding the complexity of the processes underlying innovations. Here, we set the stage by introducing and defining key terms relating to innovation and discuss their relevance to biological, cultural and technological change. Discovering how the generation and transmission of novel biological information, environmental interactions and selective evolutionary processes contribute to innovation as an ecosystem will shed light on how the dominant features across life come to be, generalize to social, cultural and technological evolution, and have applications in the health sciences and sustainability.This article is part of the theme issue 'Process and pattern in innovations from cells to societies'.
创新通常是出乎意料的，往往是表型和生态功能的巨大变化。本期专题的贡献是最新的概念、理论和实验进展，探讨了生态学、环境、个体发育和进化如何成为理解创新背后过程复杂性的核心。在这里，我们通过介绍和定义与创新相关的关键术语，并讨论它们与生物、文化和技术变革的相关性，为这一主题奠定了基础。发现新的生物信息的产生和传递、环境相互作用和选择进化过程如何促进作为生态系统的创新，将有助于揭示生命的主导特征是如何产生的，如何推广到社会、文化和技术进化，并在健康科学和可持续性方面得到应用。本文是“从细胞到社会的创新的过程和模式”专题的一部分。
