Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States of America.
Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Jun 29;13(6):e0198044. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198044. eCollection 2018.
While one system is animate and the other inanimate, both plants and cars are powered by a highly successful process which has evolved in a changing environment. Each process (the photosynthetic pathway and the car engine, respectively) originated from a basic scheme and evolved greater efficiency by adding components to the existing structure, which has remained largely unchanged. Here we present a comparative analysis of two variants on the original C3 photosynthetic pathway (C4 and CAM) and two variants on the internal combustion engine (the turbocharger and the hybrid electric vehicle). We compare the timeline of evolution, the interaction between system components, and the effects of environmental conditions on both systems. This analysis reveals striking similarities in the development of these processes, providing insight as to how complex systems-both natural and built-evolve and adapt to changing environmental conditions in a modular fashion.
虽然一个系统是有生命的，而另一个系统是无生命的，但植物和汽车都受益于一个在不断变化的环境中进化得非常成功的过程。每个过程（光合作用途径和汽车发动机）都源于一个基本的方案，并通过向现有结构添加组件来提高效率，而现有结构基本保持不变。在这里，我们对原始 C3 光合作用途径（C4 和 CAM）的两个变体和内燃机（涡轮增压器和混合动力电动汽车）的两个变体进行了比较分析。我们比较了进化的时间线、系统组件之间的相互作用以及这两个系统对环境条件的影响。这项分析揭示了这些过程在发展过程中的惊人相似之处，为我们提供了深入了解复杂系统（包括自然系统和人工系统）如何以模块化的方式进化和适应不断变化的环境条件的见解。
