Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The concept of the adaptive landscape
- 2 Modelling natural selection in adaptive landscapes
- 3 Modelling evolutionary phenomena in adaptive landscapes
- 4 The concept of the theoretical morphospace
- 5 Analysing the role of adaptive evolution in theoretical morphospaces
- 6 Analysing evolutionary phenomena in theoretical morphospaces
- 7 Evolutionary constraint in theoretical morphospace
- 8 Evolutionary development in theoretical morphospace
- 9 There is much to be done …
- References
- Index
6 - Analysing evolutionary phenomena in theoretical morphospaces
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The concept of the adaptive landscape
- 2 Modelling natural selection in adaptive landscapes
- 3 Modelling evolutionary phenomena in adaptive landscapes
- 4 The concept of the theoretical morphospace
- 5 Analysing the role of adaptive evolution in theoretical morphospaces
- 6 Analysing evolutionary phenomena in theoretical morphospaces
- 7 Evolutionary constraint in theoretical morphospace
- 8 Evolutionary development in theoretical morphospace
- 9 There is much to be done …
- References
- Index
Summary
There is no necessary link between theoretical morphology and adaptation … Theoretical morphology is about form and possibility; adaptation is about function and efficiency in the realm of the actual. Adaptation can certainly shape the occupation of morphospace; but because the model underlying a morphospace can produce nonfunctional possibilities, the morphogenetic process itself is nonadaptive … the [model] parameters themselves cannot be adaptive, only their values can.
Eble (2000, p. 524)Analysing evolution in geological time
In Chapter 3 we saw that we could use the adaptive landscape concept to conceptually model large scale evolutionary phenomena, macroevolutionary phenomena that may involve thousands of species or operate across millions of years of geological time. In this chapter we shall see that the analytical techniques of theoretical morphology allow us to actually analyse the adaptive significance of macroevolutionary phenomena, and not simply to conceptually model those phenomena.
Analysing convergent evolution in theoretical morphospace
The geometry of the helix is ubiquitous in nature – an incredible number of biological structures on all scales, from molecules to entire animals, have evolved helical structures (just a few years ago, in 2003, we observed the 50th anniversary of the discovery that the coding mechanism of life itself, DNA, has a helical structure). Within the Bryozoa, a group of colonial marine animals, helical colonies have convergently, independently, evolved in no less than six separate genera in distantly related higher taxa, scattered across a span of time comprising some 400 million years (Fig. 6.1).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Geometry of EvolutionAdaptive Landscapes and Theoretical Morphospaces, pp. 90 - 107Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006