Microbial communities as interactors: S. Andrew Inkpen and W. Ford Doolittle: Can microbial communities regenerate? Uniting ecology and evolutionary biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022, 182 pp, $20.00 PB
Microbial communities as interactors: S. Andrew Inkpen and W. Ford Doolittle: Can microbial communities regenerate? Uniting ecology and evolutionary biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022, 182 pp, $20.00 PB
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微生物群落作为相互作用者：S. Andrew Inkpen 和 W. Ford Doolittle：微生物群落可以再生吗？
DOI：
10.1007/s11016-022-00817-6
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发表时间：
2023
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Madison, Joseph D.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Madison, Joseph D.
再生作为一个概念问题，在生物学和相关哲学思想史上一直顽固地存在着。这个问题似乎跨越了生物组织的各个层面，包括有机体部分的发育再生、物种的重建、多物种群落的重现，以及生态系统或整个世界盖亚的恢复能力。最近，随着微生物学技术的进步，再生问题的界限得到了突破，这使得对微生物群落的研究变得容易。尤其是细菌，在进化理论的标准表述中，许多规范的假设都受到了质疑。在生物再生的环境中，微生物群落再生的分析本身就是一种有趣的现象，它有可能为正在进行的关于进化和生态理论结构的辩论提供信息。为了广泛地解决再生问题及其在当代研究中的框架，海洋生物实验室赞助了一系列关于再生问题的书籍。这包括一本由Inkpen和Doolittle撰写的简洁的书，它提出了一个值得称赞的尝试，使微生物群落生态学和进化中的再生有意义，并提供了一个统一的解释基础和概念分析。Inkpen和Doolittle对建立在进化论核心之上的一个熟悉的提议提出了令人信服的理由。事实上，这本书利用实证例子和哲学分析来完成这项任务，同时有一个雄心勃勃的目标，即向外行人、科学家和政策制定者等不同的目标受众提供信息。Inkpen和Doolittle首先以生态学家Frederic Clements的演替理论为例，对“群落再生”的定义进行了澄清。这个例子(1)让他们以“向后看的方式讨论群落再生，因为再生涉及到过去的一些东西的重新出现”(9),(2)为细菌提供了“生态群落”的澄清。作为Inkpen
Regeneration as a conceptual issue has stubbornly persisted through the history of biological and related philosophical thinking. The issue has seemingly spanned all levels of biological organization to include developmental regeneration of organismal parts, the reconstitution of species, recurrence of multi-species communities, and the resilience of ecosystems or whole-world Gaia. More recently, the bounds of the regeneration problem have been pushed with technological advances in microbiology which have allowed easy study of microbial communities. Bacteria in particular have vexed many canonical assumptions in standard formulations of evolutionary theory. As interesting phenomena in their own right in the milieu of biological regeneration, analysis of microbial community regeneration has the potential to inform ongoing debates on the structure of evolutionary and ecological theory. To address the issue of regeneration broadly and its framing in contemporary research, the Marine Biological Laboratory has sponsored a series of books on the regeneration problem. This includes a succinct book by Inkpen and Doolittle presenting a laudable attempt to make sense and provide a unified explanatory basis and conceptual analysis of regeneration in microbial community ecology and evolution. Inkpen and Doolittle make a compelling case for a familiar proposal that builds on the hard core of evolutionary theory. Indeed, the book leverages both empirical examples and philosophical analyses to complete this task, all while having the ambitious goal of informing a diverse target audience of laypeople, scientists, and policymakers.Inkpen and Doolittle start by providing definitional clarification of ‘community regeneration’through the example of ecologist Frederic Clements’s theory of succession. This example (1) has them discussing community regeneration as “backward-looking, in that regeneration involves something from the past reemerging”(9) and (2) provides a clarification of ‘ecological community’for bacteria. As Inkpen