The variational ratchet: Intuiting the variational approach to niche construction

by Axel Constant & Karl J Friston

The principle of evolution by natural selection provides a solid conceptual tool to understand adaptive design. It operates like a ratchet, to retain and build upon functional variation. Pull down, ‘click’! Variation. Hold tight, lock it! Retention and differential fitness. Push up! Inheritance, and ratchet your way up towards peaks in the adaptive landscape. As

Pleiotropy allows the evolutionary maintenance of positive niche construction in the face of free-riders

by Mark M Tanaka

In our paper published recently in American Naturalist, we used mathematical models to help us understand how positive niche construction can be maintained. Many animals, plants and other organisms engage in niche construction, that is, they modify the environment and the subsequent selective pressures to which they are exposed. Positive niche construction occurs when organisms

What’s hiding in Waddington’s epigenetic landscape? A case study in baby cichlids

by Karina Vanadzina

In his 1957 book entitled The Strategy of the Genes, British scientist Conrad Hal Waddington noted that the genetic sequence does not map directly onto the phenotype we can observe in nature. Contrary to the gene-centric views held by many of his contemporaries, Waddington emphasised that phenotypes ultimately depend on the interaction between genes and

Behavioral and developmental plasticity enable dung beetles to cope with temperature stress within and across generations

by Anna LM Macagno, Eduardo E Zattara, Armin P Moczek & Cris C Ledón-Rettig

While the climate is changing in complex patterns around our planet, there is strong consensus that global average temperatures are rapidly on the rise. Global climate change forces organisms to either cope with changing temperature regimes in their native habitats, or to face extinction. Furthermore, the resulting environmental changes can cause many areas to become