Darwinian Selection Leads to Gaia

Staley, Mark

doi:10.1006/jtbi.2002.3059

Cited by 26 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This has been a factor in the recent shift in the discussion towards the possibility of global regulation arising through incidental by-products (Lenton and Wilkinson, 2003;Staley, 2002;Volk, 1998Volk, , 2004. Volk (2004) refers to Gaia as ''life in a wasteworld of by-products'' as exemplified by the atmosphere, which is a repository for wastes produced by metabolic processes where 99% of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and methane, have been expelled by respirers, denitrifiers, and living prokaryotes, respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Critics of Gaia theory hold that any environmental regulation that does arise does so by chance, and that life generally just perturbs the environment subject to limits at the extremes (Volk, 2004). Whether there is an inherent tendency towards regulation in systems with widespread life or not, the most plausible candidate for the creation of any system of global regulation is some kind of mechanism acting on by-products (Staley, 2002;Volk, 1998Volk, , 2004. However, aside from environmental variables maintained in limiting states by negative feedback, a mechanism for global regulation through by-products still remains to be found (Lenton and Wilkinson, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental regulation can arise under minimal assumptions

McDonald-Gibson

Dyke

Paolo

et al. 2008

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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Models that demonstrate environmental regulation as a consequence of organism and environment coupling all require a number of core assumptions. Many previous models, such as Daisyworld, require that certain environment-altering traits have a selective advantage when those traits also contribute towards global regulation. We present a model that results in the regulation of a global environmental resource through niche construction without employing this and other common assumptions. There is no predetermined environmental optimum towards which regulation should proceed assumed or coded into the model. Nevertheless, polymorphic stable states that resist perturbation emerge from the simulated co-evolution of organisms and environment. In any single simulation a series of different stable states are realised, punctuated by rapid transitions. Regulation is achieved through two main subpopulations that are adapted to slightly different resource values, which force the environmental resource in opposing directions. This maintains the resource within a comparatively narrow band over a wide range of external perturbations. Population driven oscillations in the resource appear to be instrumental in protecting the regulation against mutations that would otherwise destroy it. Sensitivity analysis shows that the regulation is robust to mutation and to a wide range of parameter settings. Given the minimal assumptions employed, the results could reveal a mechanism capable of environmental regulation through the by-products of organisms. r

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental regulation can arise under minimal assumptions

McDonald-Gibson

Dyke

Paolo

et al. 2008

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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“…Namely this property of Gaia and the daisyworld has been repeatedly criticized (Doolittle, 1981;Dawkins, 1982;Baerlocher, 1990;Saunders, 1994;Robertson and Robinson, 1998;Staley, 2002) by questioning the possibility of such a system to originate and persist in the course of biological evolution. With regard to the correlated system "black-and-white-daisies", an independent evolution of any of its components is equivalent to decay and disintegration.…”

Section: Impossibility Of Biotic Regulation In a Globally Correlated mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We will now pursue the question of how regulation of global environmental conditions can be realized in such a biosphere. Indeed, it might seem at a first glance that as far as many local ecological communities share approximately the same global environmental conditions like surface temperature or atmospheric CO 2 concentration, there is no competitive advantage of those communities that regulate such conditions over those that do not (Doolittle, 1981;Dawkins, 1982;Staley, 2002). In such a case, the competitive interaction would be unable to prevent the mechanism of biotic regulation from decay.…”

Section: Locally and Globally Regulated Biogensmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revising the fundamentals of ecological knowledge: the biota–environment interaction

Gorshkov

Makarieva

Горшков

2004

Ecological Complexity

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The foundations of ecological science were laid down at those times when the problem of a possible loss of local and global environmental sustainability was not as acute as it has become today. To make sure that the proposed scientific solutions to this problem are responsible, it is useful to revise the existing frameworks of environmental thought. In this paper, we present quantitative evidence suggesting that the persistence of an environment suitable for life for any appreciable period of time is only possible as long as a substantial area on the planet's surface is occupied by natural ecosystems undisturbed by anthropogenic activities. Once the natural biotic mechanism of environmental control is destroyed, both local and global environment rapidly (over a time scale of hundreds of years) degrade to a state unfit for life, even if any direct anthropogenic environmental impact like industrial pollution is absent. It is therefore important to quantitatively assess the stabilizing impact of natural ecosystems and to determine the necessary and sufficient global area that must be exempted from anthropogenic activities and let be occupied by natural ecosystems, so that the latter have power enough to sustain the global environment in a stable life-compatible state. This urgent scientific task emerges as the major challenge for modern ecological science. We discuss how the proposed conceptual approach to the biota-environment interaction relates to the important paradigms of biological theory.

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“…Therefore, it is possible to treat either season variations through year or climate variability through millenniums. Staley (2002) and Charlson et al (1987) Concerning the dynamical behavior of the daisyworld, Zeng et al (1990) presents an investigation about chaos considering a discrete version. Nevertheless, the proposed discrete version is actually, different from the continuous daisyworld model, as pointed by Jascourt & Raymond (1992).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos of the Daisyworld Employed for Global Warming Description

Viola¹

2013

Appl Ecol Env Res

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Abstract. The mathematical modeling of ecological phenomena may describe time evolution and spatial distribution being capable to explain some important characteristics of ecological systems. Although there are many difficulties related to the system description, their modeling may define at least a system caricature, which may be useful for different goals. This contribution deals with the modeling of the global warming in a nonlinear dynamics point of view. Mathematical modeling is based on the daisyworld that is able to describe the global regulation that can emerge from the interaction between life and environment. In brief, daisyworld represents life by daisy populations while the environment is represented by temperature. Here, two daisy populations are of concern, black and white daisies, and an extra variable related to greenhouse gases is incorporated in the model allowing the analysis of the global warming. Moreover, transient analysis of temperature evolution is of concern. Climate variability is represented by a sinusoidal variation of the luminosity. Numerical simulations are investigated in order to present a qualitative description of the phenomenon. Daisyworld dynamics presents a rich behavior including chaos.

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Darwinian Selection Leads to Gaia

Cited by 26 publications

References 18 publications

Environmental regulation can arise under minimal assumptions

Environmental regulation can arise under minimal assumptions

Revising the fundamentals of ecological knowledge: the biota–environment interaction

Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos of the Daisyworld Employed for Global Warming Description

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