Individuality Through Ecology: Rethinking the Evolution of Complex Life From an Externalist Perspective
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Date
2024
Authors
Bourrat, P.
Takacs, P.
Doulcier, G.
Nitschke, M.C.
Black, A.J.
Hammerschmidt, K.
Rainey, P.B.
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Ecology and Evolution, 2024; 14(12):e70661-1-e70661-13
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Pierrick Bourrat, Peter Takacs, Guilhem Doulcier, Matthew C. Nitschke, Andrew J. Black, Katrin Hammerschmidt, Paul B. Rainey
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Abstract
The evolution of complex life forms, exemplified by multicellular organisms, can be traced through a series of evolutionary transitions in individuality, beginning with the origin of life, followed by the emergence of the eukaryotic cell, and, among other transitions, culminating in the shift from unicellularity to multicellularity. Several attempts have been made to explain the origins of such transitions, many of which have been internalist (i.e., based largely on internal properties of ancestral entities). Here, we show how externalist perspectives can shed new light on questions pertaining to evolutionary transitions in individuality. We do this by presenting the ecological scaffolding framework in which properties of complex life forms arise from an external scaffold. Ultimately, we anticipate that progress will come from recognition of the importance of both the internalist and externalist modes of explanation. We illustrate this by considering an extension of the ecological scaffolding model in which cells modify the environment that later becomes the scaffold giving rise to multicellular individuality.
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© 2024 The Author(s). Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.