How Adaptive Learning Affects Evolution: Reviewing Theory on the Baldwin Effect

Sznajder, Beata; Sabelis, Maurice W.; Egas, Martijn

doi:10.1007/s11692-011-9155-2

Cited by 66 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(90 reference statements)

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“…Indeed the idea that plasticity-generated variation may become genetically fixed was proposed one century ago by Baldwin ("orthoplasy"), and updated as "genetic assimilation" by Waddington 70 years ago. This concept ("genetic accomodation", West-Eberhard, 2003) has become a major theme in discussions of the origin of evolutionary change (e.g., Crispo, 2007, Badyaev, 2009, Sznajder et al, 2012.…”

Section: Neural Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development vs. behavior: a role for neural adaptation in evolution?

Ghysen

Dambly‐Chaudière

2016

Int. J. Dev. Biol.

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We examine the evolution of sensory organ patterning in the lateral line system of fish. Based on recent studies of how this system develops in zebrafish, and on comparative analyses between zebrafish and tuna, we argue that the evolution of lateral line patterns is mostly determined by variations in the underlying developmental processes, independent of any selective pressure. Yet the development of major developmental innovations is so directly linked to their exploitation that it is hard not to think of them as selected for, i.e., adaptive. We propose that adaptation resides mostly in how the nervous system adjusts to new morphologies to make them functional, i.e., that species are neurally adapted to whatever morphology is provided to them by their own developmental program. We show that recent data on behavioral differences between cave forms (blind) and surface forms (eyed) of the mexican fish Astyanax fasciatus support this view, and we propose that this species might provide a unique opportunity to assess the nature of adaptation and of selection in animal evolution.

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Section: Neural Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development vs. behavior: a role for neural adaptation in evolution?

Ghysen

Dambly‐Chaudière

2016

Int. J. Dev. Biol.

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“…The fact that individuals may rely on information from different sources may provide a new perspective on the Baldwin effect [57]. The Baldwin effect stipulates that individuals explore a set of phenotypes to find a good match with their environment rather than encode all options genetically: phenotypes result from learning rather than from phenotypic plasticity.…”

Section: Information From Different Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological information: why we need a good measure and the challenges ahead

Baalen

2013

Interface Focus.

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Evolution can be characterized as a process that shapes and maintains information across generations. It is also widely acknowledged that information may play a pivotal role in many other ecological processes. Most of the ecologically relevant information (and some important evolutionary information too) is of a very subjective and analogue kind: individuals use cues that may carry information useful only to them but not to others. This is a problem because most information theory has been developed for objective and discrete information. Can information theory be extended to this theory to incorporate multiple forms of information, each with its own (physical) carriers and dynamics? Here, I will not review all the possible roles that information can play, but rather what conditions an appropriate theory should satisfy. The most promising starting point is provided by entropy measures of conditional probabilities (using the so-called Kullback–Leibler divergence), allowing an assessment of how acquiring information can lead to an increase in fitness. It is irrelevant (to a certain extent) where the information comes from—genes, experience or culture—but it is important to realize that information is not merely subjective but its value should be evaluated in fitness terms, and it is here that evolutionary theory has an enormous potential. A number of important stumbling points remain, however; namely, the identification of whose fitness it concerns and what role the spatio-temporal dynamics plays (which is tightly linked to the nature of the physical carriers of the information and the processes that impact on it).

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“…Phenotypic plasticity generally, and learning especially, increase the chances that a population will traverse low-fitness phenotype combinations to reach the vicinity of a new adaptive peak (via the "Baldwin effect" [72][73][74][75]). This process can occur rapidly, as when individuals learn novel adaptive food or habitat preferences from others [28].…”

Section: Causes Of Diversification and Speciationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in diversification and speciation

Pfennig¹,

Servedio²

2013

Non-Genetic Inheritance

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Epigenetic effects -Broadly defined, any phenotypic variations that arise through processes other than those involving alterations in the base-pair nucleotide sequence of DNA.Inheritance -The process by which phenotypic characters (including behaviors) are transmitted from parent to offspring.Isolating mechanism -Any behavioral, morphological, physiological, genetic, or biochemical features of organisms that prevent gene exchange between populations (sensu Dobzhansky [1]). Phenotypic diversification -As used here, the evolution of different traits in different populations. Phenotypic plasticity -The capacity of a single genotype to produce different phenotypes in direct response to varying environmental conditions.Speciation -The process by which barriers to gene flow evolve between populations within an ancestral species, resulting in two or more descendent species. Species -Groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups (sensu Mayr [2,3]). Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance -The inheritance of phenotypic characters through processes other than those involving changes in DNA sequence, such as chromatin marking, maternal effects, parasite transmission, and learning (sensu Jablonka and Lamb [4]). Section 1Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance: a challenge for evolutionary biology The importance of inheritance for evolutionA central goal of biology is to explain the diversity of life. Namely, why are there so many different kinds of living things, and why do they tend to differ from each other phenotypically? One hundred and fifty years ago, Darwin provided an answer, which he summarized in the last paragraph of On the Origin of Species [5]:"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, AbstractInheritance is crucial to the evolutionary process. Although most evolutionary biologists assume that inheritance occurs exclusively through changes in DNA base sequence, it has long been known that inheritance can also occur through epigenetic mechanisms, such as chromatin marking, maternal effects, parasite transmission, or learning. In recent years, the possibility that such transgenerational epigenetic inheritance mechanisms can mediate long-term evolutionary change has received increased attention. Here, we consider the potential contribution of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in driving diversification and speciation. As we describe, a growing body of theoretical and empirical studies suggests that epigenetic inheritance can accelerate the likelihood that genetic change will occur and thereby facilitate speciation. Additionally, evolution and diversification can p...

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How Adaptive Learning Affects Evolution: Reviewing Theory on the Baldwin Effect

Cited by 66 publications

References 52 publications

Development vs. behavior: a role for neural adaptation in evolution?

Development vs. behavior: a role for neural adaptation in evolution?

Biological information: why we need a good measure and the challenges ahead

The role of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in diversification and speciation

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