Processes and patterns of interaction as units of selection: An introduction to ITSNTS thinking
Processes and patterns of interaction as units of selection: An introduction to ITSNTS thinking
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1722232115
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发表时间：
2018-04-17
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Inkpen, S. Andrew
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Doolittle, W. Ford;Inkpen, S. Andrew
许多执业生物学家都承认，除了进化论之外，他们的学科中没有任何东西是有意义的，自然选择是进化论的主要意义制造者。但是，自然选择究竟是什么（例如，一种力量或一种统计结果），以及它直接作用的生物等级（基因、有机体、物种甚至生态系统）的层次，仍然在哲学家和理论生物学家之间存在着激烈的争论。自然选择进化的大多数公式强调实体在这些水平中的一个或另一个的差异繁殖。有些人也承认差异持久性，但无论哪种情况，重点都是物质的谱系：即使物种也可以被认为是时空限制的，如果分散的话，物理存在。很少有人把基因、细胞、物种或群落所执行的过程看作是“选择的单位”。“这是歌曲而不是歌手”（ITSNTS）理论做到了这一点，还声称自然选择过程的进化更容易理解和解释为差异持久性而不是差异繁殖。ITSNTS的制定是为了回应观察到的微生物群落的集体功能（歌曲）比实现它们的类群（歌手）更稳定地保存和生态相关。它的目的是作为一个有用的纠正声称“holobiont”（微生物和它们的动物或植物宿主）是聚合的“选择单位”，声称往往混淆了后一个术语的含义。但ITSNS似乎也广泛适用于例如全球生物地球化学循环的演变和生态系统功能的定义。
Many practicing biologists accept that nothing in their discipline makes sense except in the light of evolution, and that natural selection is evolution's principal sense-maker. But what natural selection actually is (a force or a statistical outcome, for example) and the levels of the biological hierarchy (genes, organisms, species, or even ecosystems) at which it operates directly are still actively disputed among philosophers and theoretical biologists. Most formulations of evolution by natural selection emphasize the differential reproduction of entities at one or the other of these levels. Some also recognize differential persistence, but in either case the focus is on lineages of material things: even species can be thought of as spatiotemporally restricted, if dispersed, physical beings. Few consider-as "units of selection" in their own right-the processes implemented by genes, cells, species, or communities. "It's the song not the singer" (ITSNTS) theory does that, also claiming that evolution by natural selection of processes is more easily understood and explained as differential persistence than as differential reproduction. ITSNTS was formulated as a response to the observation that the collective functions of microbial communities (the songs) are more stably conserved and ecologically relevant than are the taxa that implement them (the singers). It aims to serve as a useful corrective to claims that "holobionts" (microbes and their animal or plant hosts) are aggregate "units of selection," claims that often conflate meanings of that latter term. But ITSNS also seems broadly applicable, for example, to the evolution of global biogeochemical cycles and the definition of ecosystem function.