Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyvaskyla, Jyvaskyla, Finland.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Evolution. 2022 Jul;76(7):1619-1624. doi: 10.1111/evo.14502. Epub 2022 May 18.
Neo-Darwinism characterizes biological adaptation as a one-sided process, in which organisms adapt to their environment but not vice versa. This asymmetric relationship-here called Williams' asymmetry-is called into question by Niche Construction Theory, which emphasizes that organisms and their environments often mutually affect each other. Here, we clarify that Williams' asymmetry is specifically concerned with (quasi)-directed modifications toward phenotypes that increase individual fitness. This directedness-which drives the adaptive fit between organism and environment-entails far more than the mere presence of cause-effect relationships. We argue that difficulties with invoking fitness as the guiding principle of adaptive evolution are resolved with an appropriate definition of fitness and that objections against Williams' asymmetry reflect confusions about the nature of biological adaptation.
新达尔文主义将生物适应特征化为一个片面的过程，在这个过程中，生物体适应环境，而不是相反。这种不对称关系——这里称为威廉姆斯不对称——受到生态位构建理论的质疑，该理论强调生物体和它们的环境经常相互影响。在这里，我们澄清说，威廉姆斯的不对称特别关注（准）直接针对增加个体适应性的表型的修改。这种方向性——驱动生物体和环境之间的适应性契合——不仅仅涉及因果关系的存在。我们认为，通过适当定义适应性和解决将适应性进化作为适应进化的指导原则的困难，以及反对威廉姆斯不对称的反对意见反映了对生物适应本质的混淆。
