Organisms and their environment: An evolving relationship

摘要

Recently, there has been debate on whether an extended evolutionary synthesis is warranted (Laland et al. 2014; Pigliucci and Finkelman 2014; Wray et al. 2014; Laland et al. 2015). Among the key processes that advocates of this revision claim have been neglected are phenotypic plasticity--the widespread ability of organisms to alter their traits in direct response to changes in their environment--and niche construction--the idea that organisms do more than simply adapt to pre-existing environments; that they can also actively construct the ecological niche in which they live (Laland et al. 2014, 2015). However, many researchers remain skeptical of the strength of the evidence for these processes in impacting evolution (Wray et al. 2014). Therefore, it is incumbent on researchers who study phenotypic plasticity and niche construction to assess the existing evidence for these processes in diverse organisms and to perform rigorous tests to evaluate the role(s) these processes play in shaping ecology and evolution (Levis and Pfennig 2016). Sonia E. Sultan addresses both aims in her new book, Organism & Environment: Ecological Development, Niche Construction, and Adaptation (Sultan 2015).