Coevolution

Mutualisms are of fundamental importance in all ecosystems but their very existence poses a series of challenging evolutionary questions. Recently, the application of molecular analyses combined with theoretical advances have transformed our understanding of many specific systems, thereby contributing to the possibility of a more general understanding of the factors that influence mutualisms.

The topic of evolution in interacting species was interpreted to focus upon predator-prey coevolution. This would enable a sound theoretical basis to be constructed for the analysis of evolution in larger systems, such as food webs. As a result all the systems explored in the project were predator-prey systems.
The use of analytical, numerical, and simulation models to study predator­ prey coevolution has shown that there occur a variety of consequences for the ecological dynamics of evolving predator-prey systems.  Evolutionary change can result in a wide range of dynamical behaviour, from stable equilibria to chaos.  The consequences of natural selection need not be stability, as some single-species models and experiments have suggested.  However, ecological dynamic stability is not required for evolutionary persistence.
The results obtained support arguments for the misleading nature of local asymptotic stability as a measure of the dynamics of ecological systems. However, it was not found possible to use permanence as an alternative to local asymptotic stability, as had been the original intention.
Results from the simulation models showed that convergence to ecological equilibrium was not necessarily to be expected in systems of evolving interacting species, in contrast to many models of community assembly and evolution.  The size of the potential parameter space of the simulation models meant that not all the dynamical behaviour of these models could be explored in the time scale of the project.
The analytical models I developed enabled an exploration of evolutionary and ecological dynamics more thoroughly than the simulation models, and compensated for the limited understanding of the simulation systems.  A wide range of evolutionary dynamics, such as ESSs and Red Queen coevolution, were seen to be produced from very simple systems, implying that more complex systems, such as food webs, would have much more interesting evolutionary consequences.  The use of "phenotype space" based techniques enabled a more global understanding of the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of predator-prey interactions than had previously been possible.
In general, the results supported the contentions that both ecological and evolutionary dynamics need to be taken into consideration when studying the evolution of interacting species; and that ecological interactions need to be considered in evolutionary models. The techniques I used to address these questions have potential applications in future research.

The article addresses the environmental question by critiquing the anthropocentric vision, still alive in the design debate and practice, as a remnant of the underlying dualism humanity/environment. It opposes the co-evolutionist and New Realism theses re-elaborated in the light of a new metalanguage (Digital Mathema) capable of ‘giving voice’ to the multitude of agents and to activate forms of collaborative intelligence (Computational Intelligences), enabling design explorations beyond established norms and the already known. Following is a description of Parametric and Generative Design and the Mailab research laboratory’s experiences. The conclusion is an invitation to reflect on the possible side effects that could arise from digital marking and from an excessive emphasis on the ‘know-how’.

The evolution of plant–animal interactions goes back to the Early Archean, when the first signals of photosynthesis may have been detected in the Isua Peninsula in Greenland, a phenomenon that is related to the isotopic anomalies of carbon. The first evidence of reliable fossils of photosynthetic microorganisms has been identified by micropaleontologists in the Late Archean and Early Proterozoic. A closely related topic in this geologic time interval is the evolution of trophic relations and metabolic diversification in the microbial world. In the context of the three domains of life, Archea, Bacteria, and Eucarya, the bifurcation of multicellular organisms into plants and animals becomes evident only during the Paleozoic. Cell evolution also leads up to the unicellular dichotomy of autotrophs and heterotrophs. Symbiosis has a strong role to play in the transition to plants and animals in the Phanerozoic. It is timely to focus on the details of evolution in the Cretaceous and Tertiary, where detailed pathways of evolution have been gathered in many geographical regions, including the Karst region of northern Italy. Various experimental techniques have contributed to elucidate the coevolution of plants and animals. A special case of plant–animal interaction is the evolution and dispersal of hominins, including their impact on the ecosystems. A significant development in understanding the evolution of plant–animal interactions is based on the possibility of identifying reliable biomarkers that can characterize its different stages, from the earliest microbes to the extant plants and animals. Such identification of biomarkers labeling different stages of evolution may orient the search for life in the exploration of the Solar System.

In this chapter, we review empirical evidence for stronger allelopathic effects of exotic European invaders on North American natives than on other European species. We argue that this evidence provides critical insights into the impor- tance of coevolutionary relationships within plant communities. We discuss how the disruption of these and other biochemical coevolutionary relation- ships may lead to the success

This essay presents an aesthetic theory based on the coevolution of the biological and cultural elements of the human nervous system. If the evolution of our sense of beauty is a nonlinear feedback between cultural and biological determinants, recent developments in the theory of chaos, nonlinear processes, and self-organizing systems can point the way to a better understanding of aesthetics. The experience of beauty is redescribed as a reward analogous to the neurochemical rewards for other adaptive activities such as eating and sex. Beauty itself is broadly redefined as an objective property of the fundamental generative processes of the universe—thus as possessing a real, not just a subjective, existence. Like our eyes, our aesthetic sense is designed to perceive objects that are actually out there: systems which show promise for emergent forms of order. The ability to recognize such systems would have adaptive significance. The “natural classical” genres or “neurocharms” of the arts, such as poetic meter and visual pattern, are techniques for controlling and creating such emergence-promising systems, and are culturally universal. A new theory of meaning is proposed, using recent developments in the theory of chaotically-oscillating neural circuits in the brain. Words do not indicate the absence of their referents, as in poststructuralist theory; instead, as emergent strange attractors in the brain, they participate in complex nonlinear physical feedback relationships with their referents.

Social Legal Theory (SLT) has been heralded as the “third pillar” of jurisprudence, offering a social scientific alternative to the rational relativity of legal positivism and the moral determinism of natural law. Yet recently SLT’s most ardent champion, Professor Brian Tamanaha, appears to have broken ranks. Assuming a “holistic” perspective, Tamanaha now contends that law “emerges” from both social and naturalistic influences. This move not only undermines SLT, it seemingly transforms that view into the existing theory of jurisilience, which uses the holistic epistemology of consilience to provide a bio-socio-cultural account of law’s essence.

Despite outward appearances, however, these approaches are far from identical. Unlike the revamped version of SLT, which is ontologically constrained and conflicted, jurisilience explains law’s emergence through systems science and cutting-edge sociology. It shows that law is not a simple assemblage of social and/or natural forces. Instead, it is a complex information network of interdependent “jurisystems.” Grounded in our natural need for homeostasis, human legality originates in our genetic and neurobiological systems, scales up to our normative social systems, and becomes externalized as a supreme system of formal law. Once entrenched, law does not remain stagnant, but continuously coordinates human conflicts, relieves social stress, and reinforces social bonds. Over time, law’s dynamism changes social behavior and cultural memory, initiating a cycle of epigenetics and gene-culture coevolution that renews our biological disposition for legality. Given law’s systemic nature, any socio-centric jurisprudence now seems obsolete. The fact is, jurisilience and jurisystems do not just systematize SLT; they systematize SLT right out of existence.

1. Deceptive species are a characteristic trait of insect–plant mutualisms. Deception of pollinators is essential for reproduction in diverse plant species; however, mimicry in seed dispersal is almost unknown. Myrmecochory, the dispersal of diaspores by ants, is a mutualism in which the elaiosome, a lipid-rich seed appendage, works as an ant reward. This coevolved interaction may be exploited by cheating, non-rewarding diaspores that mimic elaiosomes.2. Our study assesses the impact of the morphology and fatty acid composition of diaspores on ant dispersal in rewarding and cheating myrmecochores and non-myrmecochorous species. Four elaiosome types (defined by Sernander 1906) were included in our research: the ‘Viola odorata type’, with a clearly defined elaiosome, the similar but diplochorous ‘Euphorbia type’ with an additional ballistic dispersal of diaspores, and the ‘Puschkinia’ and ‘Hepatica’ types, which we classify as ‘cheaters’ as they mimic ant rewards by chemical cues.3. We tested the influence of morphology, chemical composition of diaspores and presence of rewards on removal rates of diaspores, dummies impregnated with seed extracts and pure fatty acids and scent-standardized diaspores in a population of Formica polyctena ants with 10 European spring ephemerals, mostly Ranunculaceae. The main free fatty acids of diaspores were identified by gas chromatography and mass spectrometric analysis.4. Removal rates of diaspores and dummies treated with seed extracts were significantly influenced by their fatty acid composition. Discriminant function analysis confirmed oleic acid as the main trigger substance eliciting seed-removal behaviour by ants in most species. Oleic acid content and removal rates differed among elaiosome types and were highest in rewarding myrmecochores, lower in cheaters and smallest in non-myrmecochorous seeds. Removal rates of scent-standardized diaspores did not differ among mutualists and cheaters suggesting a selective pressure for morphological adaptation and were lowest in non-myrmecochorous species, thus corroborating an influence of diaspore morphology on ant-removal patterns.5. For the first time, we demonstrate chemical mimicry in myrmecochory as a means of seed dispersal. Evolutionary stability of the ant–seed mutualism is maintained by the ability of ants to discriminate between certain types of rewards and to respond with differential diaspore distribution rates.

In the debate on canine domestication, researchers have identified a lot of valid information regarding the time, the region and the ancestor of the dog. But researchers are still figuring out, why and how this process started. The scavenging hypothesis, first proposed 2001 by Ray and Lorna Coppinger, proclaims the first human waste dumps as the ecological niche for the self-domestication-process of dogs. Many scientists refer to that model, sometimes partly modified. The scavenging hypothesis is broadcasted by most public media as the commonly accepted model of dog's domestication. Thus, we have to deal with that popular model. Based on a broad multidisciplinary approach like human evolution, archaeology, palaeogenetics, psychology and neurobiology, we will look for evidence. Investigating nine assumptions of the scavenging hypothesis we did not find any evidence. Dog's domestication started thousands of years before the advent of food waste dumps. The scavenging hypothesis cannot explain why only wolves and never foxes nor jackals have been domesticated. Paleolithic people and ancient wolves were living together closely in the same ecological niche hunting the same prey with the same cooperative methods. It is likely that they met very often and knew each other very well. We have some hints, that ancient wolves and people treated each other with respect cooperatively. We have hints for an active cooperation from humans and dogs starting in the Upper Paleolithic period long before it would have even been possible scavenging human waste. We have hints for emotional bonds between ancient people and dogs. Emotional bonds would have been unlikely for an animal hanging around human settlements while scavenging carrion and feces, like the scavenging hypothesizes describe. Looking at recent dogs and humans we have evidence for strong unique similarities in the psychological and neurobiological structures eventually allowing interspecific bonding, communication and working. Interspecific cooperation decreased the level of the stress axis of both species in the Paleolithic period and even does so today, what improves our social and cognitive abilities. We propose that dogs domestication could be understand as an active social process of both sides. Further investigations need a closely networked multidisciplinary approach.

This editorial introduces a special section of the journal on ecological economics: The next 30 years consisting of 20 different articles from a broad range of contributors. It explores common themes from the articles including uncertainty, the normative goals of sustainable scale and just distribution, collective action, co-evolution, transdisciplinarity and the need for radical systemic change. Drawing on our own vision for the next 30 years of EE, we use multi-level selection theory (MLS) to help understand how these themes are connected, to offer insights into how we might promote collective action at the scale required to achieve a socially just sustainability transition, and to reassess the distinction between normative and positive science. We conclude that ecological economists are united primarily by the recognition that economics must be built from biophysical foundations and by our shared normative values that prioritize the common good over self-interested individual preferences

A significant fraction of human cancers is associated with infections by different papillomaviruses (PVs). In other vertebrates, the presence of specific PVs is also associated with different neoplasias. The popular view of PVs conceives them to be largely static and relies on generalized assumptions that have rarely been rigorously tested such as: virus-host codivergence, strict tissue tropism and host-specificity, their very low mutation rate and the absence of recombination. Here, we want to stress the need and the medical importance of understanding the evolutionary history and present-day dynamics of PVs. Understanding the way that PV genomes have evolved will clarify the link between a given genotype and the phenotypic and clinical outcome of the corresponding viral infection.Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The apple (Malus domestica [Suckow] Borkh.) is one of the most economically and culturally significant fruits in the world today, and it is grown in all temperate zones. With over a thousand landraces recognized, the modern apple provides a unique case study for understanding plant evolution under human cultivation. Recent genomic and archaeobotanical studies have illuminated parts of the process of domestication in the Rosaceae family. Interestingly, these data seem to suggest that rosaceous arboreal crops did not follow the same pathway toward domestication as other domesticated, especially annual, plants. Unlike in cereal crops, tree domestication appears to have been rapid and driven by hybridization. Apple domestication also calls into question the concept of centers of domestication and human intentionality. Studies of arboreal domestication also illustrate the importance of fully understanding the seed dispersal processes in the wild progenitors when studying crop origins. Large fruits in Rosaceae evolved as a seed-dispersal adaptation recruiting megafaunal mammals of the late Miocene. Genetic studies illustrate that the increase in fruit size and changes in morphology during evolution in the wild resulted from hybridization events and were selected for by large seed dispersers. Humans over the past three millennia have fixed larger-fruiting hybrids through grafting and cloning. Ultimately, the process of evolution under human cultivation parallels the natural evolution of larger fruits in the clade as an adaptive strategy, which resulted in mutualism with large mammalian seed dispersers (disperser recruitment).

Che è "vita"? Quali sono i suoi confini? Quando un corpo muore? Quando la materia diventa vita? Che significato hanno termini come "intelligenza", "consapevolezza", "coscienza"? Per affrontare questo intreccio di domande abbiamo deciso di adottare una prospettiva particolare: quella del mondo vegetale.