Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Astrobiology. 2024 Mar;24(3):318-327. doi: 10.1089/ast.2023.0094. Epub 2024 Feb 13.
Organisms act stochastically. A not uncommon view in the ecological literature is that this is mainly due to the observer having insufficient information or a stochastic environment-and not partly because organisms themselves respond with inherent unpredictability. In this study, I compile the evidence that contradicts that view. Organisms generate uncertainty internally, which results in irreducible stochastic responses. I consider why: for instance, stochastic responses are associated with greater adaptability to changing environments and resource availability. Over longer timescales, biologically generated uncertainty influences behavior, evolution, and macroecological processes. Indeed, it could be stated that organisms are systems by the internal generation, magnification, and record-keeping of uncertainty as inputs to responses. Important practical implications arise if organisms can indeed be defined by an association with specific classes of inherent uncertainty: not least that isolating those signatures then provides a potential means for detecting life, for considering the forms that life could theoretically take, and for exploring the wider limits to how life might become distributed. These are all fundamental goals in astrobiology.
生物是随机行为的。在生态学文献中，一个常见的观点是，这主要是由于观察者的信息不足或随机环境造成的，而不是部分由于生物体本身具有内在的不可预测性。在这项研究中，我收集了与这种观点相矛盾的证据。生物体内部产生不确定性，导致不可避免的随机响应。我考虑了为什么：例如，随机响应与对不断变化的环境和资源可用性的更高适应性相关。在更长的时间尺度上，生物产生的不确定性会影响行为、进化和宏观生态过程。事实上，可以说生物体是通过内部产生、放大和记录不确定性作为对响应的输入的系统。如果生物体确实可以通过与特定类别的内在不确定性的关联来定义，那么就会产生重要的实际影响：不仅如此，分离这些特征签名然后提供了一种潜在的检测生命的手段，以考虑生命在理论上可能采取的形式，并探索生命可能分布的更广泛极限。这些都是天体生物学的基本目标。
