Genetic Assimilation of an Acquired Character

Waddington, C. H.

doi:10.2307/2405747

Cited by 803 publications

(593 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

577

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The term canalization is used also to refer to the condition of a developmental system that is buffered against genetic and/or environmental variation. Genetic accommodation resulting in a decrease in environmental sensitivity (environmental canalization) is also called genetic assimilation (Waddington 1953), whereas genetic accommodation resulting in an increase in environmental sensitivity is partially coincident with the so-called Baldwin effect (Baldwin 1896; but see Crispo (2007) for a detailed analyses of the history and usage of these terms).…”

Section: The Evolution Of Plasticitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenotypic plasticity in development and evolution: facts and concepts

Fusco

Minelli

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

487

321

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This theme issue pursues an exploration of the potential of taking into account the environmental sensitivity of development to explaining the evolution of metazoan life cycles, with special focus on complex life cycles and the role of developmental plasticity. The evolution of switches between alternative phenotypes as a response to different environmental cues and the evolution of the control of the temporal expression of alternative phenotypes within an organism's life cycle are here treated together as different dimensions of the complex relationships between genotype and phenotype, fostering the emergence of a more general and comprehensive picture of phenotypic evolution through a quite diverse sample of case studies. This introductory article reviews fundamental facts and concepts about phenotypic plasticity, adopting the most authoritative terminology in use in the current literature. The main topics are types and components of phenotypic variation, the evolution of organismal traits through plasticity, the origin and evolution of phenotypic plasticity and its adaptive value.

show abstract

Section: The Evolution Of Plasticitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenotypic plasticity in development and evolution: facts and concepts

Fusco

Minelli

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

487

321

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Waddington used heat shock treatment during puparium formation to enhance the appearance of cross-vein-less individuals and to increase its frequency in his experimental population. Waddington was able to alter the underlying developmental landscape of the trait such that the trait now appeared on its own and in high frequency without the requirement of further heat shock treatment (Waddington 1953).…”

Section: Evolution and Development: Selection And Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

Darwin’s legacy II: why biology is not physics, or why it has taken a century to see the dependence of genes on the environment

Singh

2015

Genome

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Genes and environment make the organism. Darwin stood firm in his denial of any direct role of environment in the modification of heredity. His theory of evolution heralded two debates: one about the importance and adequacy of natural selection as the main mechanism of evolution, and the other about the role of genes versus environment in the modification of phenotype and evolution. Here, I provide an overview of the second debate and show that the reasons for the gene versus environment battle were twofold: first, there was confusion about the role of environment in modifying the inheritance of a trait versus the evolution of that trait, and second, there was misunderstanding about the meaning of environment and its interaction with genes in the production of phenotypes. It took nearly a century to see that environment does not directly affect the inheritance of a phenotype (i.e., its heredity), but it is nevertheless the primary mover of phenotypic evolution. Effects of genes and environment are not separate but interdependent. One cannot separate the effect of genes from that of environment, or nature from nurture. To answer the question posed in the title, it is partly because the 20th century has been a century of unending progress in genetics. But also because unlike physics, biology is not colorblind; progress in biology has often been delayed beyond the Kuhnian paradigm change due to built-in interest in negating the influence of environment. Those who are against evolution, of course, cannot be expected to understand the role of environment in evolution. Those for it, many biologists included, believing in the supremacy of genes empowers them by giving adaptation a solely gene-directed (self-driven) "teleological" interpretation.

show abstract

“…When phenotypic accommodation includes elements of complex developmental and genetic pathways of existing structures or when the ability to accommodate novel inputs is itself heritable, recurrent natural selection can lead to retention and heritability of the induced changes (Baldwin 1902;Waddington 1953). However, natural selection accompanying the house finch establishment in new and diverse parts of the expanding range is unlikely to be recurrent over time, whereas the limits to expressed variability imposed by heritability might actually prevent population persistence when such persistence favours variability.…”

Section: Evidence For the Baldwin Effect's Processes (A) Environmentamentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary significance of phenotypic accommodation in novel environments: an empirical test of the Baldwin effect

Badyaev

2009

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

164

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When faced with changing environments, organisms rapidly mount physiological and behavioural responses, accommodating new environmental inputs in their functioning. The ubiquity of this process contrasts with our ignorance of its evolutionary significance: whereas within-generation accommodation of novel external inputs has clear fitness consequences, current evolutionary theory cannot easily link functional importance and inheritance of novel accommodations. One hundred and twelve years ago, J. M. Baldwin, H. F. Osborn and C. L. Morgan proposed a process (later termed the Baldwin effect) by which non-heritable developmental accommodation of novel inputs, which makes an organism fit in its current environment, can become internalized in a lineage and affect the course of evolution. The defining features of this process are initial overproduction of random (with respect to fitness) developmental variation, followed by withingeneration accommodation of a subset of this variation by developmental or functional systems ('organic selection'), ensuring the organism's fit and survival. Subsequent natural selection sorts among resultant developmental variants, which, if recurrent and consistently favoured, can be inherited when existing genetic variance includes developmental components of individual modifications or when the ability to accommodate novel inputs is itself heritable. Here, I show that this process is consistent with the origin of novel adaptations during colonization of North America by the house finch. The induction of developmental variation by novel environments of this species's expanding range was followed by homeostatic channelling, phenotypic accommodation and directional cross-generational transfer of a subset of induced developmental outcomes favoured by natural selection. These results emphasize three principal points. First, contemporary novel adaptations result mostly from reorganization of existing structures that shape newly expressed variation, giving natural selection an appearance of a creative force. Second, evolutionary innovations and maintenance of adaptations are different processes. Third, both the Baldwin and parental effects are probably a transient state in an evolutionary cycle connecting initial phenotypic retention of adaptive changes and their eventual genetic determination and, thus, the origin of adaptation and evolutionary change.

show abstract

Genetic Assimilation of an Acquired Character

Cited by 803 publications

References 2 publications

Phenotypic plasticity in development and evolution: facts and concepts

Phenotypic plasticity in development and evolution: facts and concepts

Darwin’s legacy II: why biology is not physics, or why it has taken a century to see the dependence of genes on the environment

Evolutionary significance of phenotypic accommodation in novel environments: an empirical test of the Baldwin effect

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About