Department of Earth Sciences, Palaeobiology Programme, Uppsala University, SE 75236 Uppsala, Sweden.
Curr Biol. 2021 Oct 11;31(19):R1181-R1185. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.040.
In his famous (if uncharacteristic) burst of lyricism at the end of the Origin Darwin described biodiversity as "endless forms most beautiful and wonderful". It is easy to agree with him when one considers red-lipped batfish or pelagic holothurians. But are they endless, or are there limitations to the variety of forms - and if there are, where do they come from? Can morphological evolution be described by Brownian motion of a gas, slowly diffusing to fill up all the space of possible forms, or does it operate within a certain set of constraints? And if there are constraints, where do they come from? The concept of morphospace is an attempt to map out the products of evolution within a quantitative framework to try to shed light on these questions.
在《物种起源》的结尾处，达尔文一反常态，以一段著名的抒情文字描述了生物多样性是“无数最美丽和奇妙的形式”。当人们想到红唇蝙蝠鱼或深海海参时，很容易同意他的观点。但是，它们是无穷无尽的呢，还是生物形式的多样性存在着限制——如果有，这些限制来自哪里？形态进化能否用气体的布朗运动来描述，这种运动缓慢扩散以填满可能形式的所有空间，还是它在一定的约束条件下运作？如果存在约束，它们来自哪里？形态空间的概念是试图在一个定量框架内绘制出进化的产物，以试图回答这些问题。
