Mapping Biological Transmission: An Empirical, Dynamical, and Evolutionary Approach

Merlin, Francesca; Riboli-Sasco, Livio

doi:10.1007/s10441-017-9305-8

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The specific interpretation of extended heredity can be debated (Merlin and Riboli-Sasco 2017;Pontarotti 2015) as well as the impact of non-genetic transmission on evolutionary processes (Pocheville 2019). Yet, extended heredity provides strong support to the idea that biological legacies are not restricted to DNA sequences, and that elements of the parental body can be directly transmitted to offspring (Bonduriansky 2012, p. 333;Jablonka and Raz 2009, p. 133).…”

Section: Extended Heredity: Making the Phenotypes Transmissible And C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The genotype–phenotype distinction: from Mendelian genetics to 21st century biology

2022

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The Genotype-Phenotype (G-P) distinction was proposed in the context of Mendelian genetics, in the wake of late nineteenth century studies about heredity. In this paper, we provide a conceptual analysis that highlights that the G-P distinction was grounded on three pillars: observability, transmissibility, and causality. Originally, the genotype is the non-observable and transmissible cause of its observable and non-transmissible effect, the phenotype. We argue that the current developments of biology have called the validity of such pillars into question. First, molecular biology has unveiled the putative material substrate of the genotype (qua DNA), making it an observable object. Second, numerous findings on non-genetic heredity suggest that some phenotypic traits can be directly transmitted. Third, recent organicist approaches to biological phenomena have emphasized the reciprocal causality between parts of a biological system, which notably applies to the relation between genotypes and phenotypes. As a consequence, we submit that the G-P distinction has lost its general validity, although it can still apply to specific situations. This calls for forging new frameworks and concepts to better describe heredity and development.

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Section: Extended Heredity: Making the Phenotypes Transmissible And C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The genotype–phenotype distinction: from Mendelian genetics to 21st century biology

2022

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“…Here we adopt the sequence definition of the gene (box 1), which, although highly reductionist, has the great merit of being extremely specific, and clearly separating sequence information from other DNA-linked components of inheritance such as epigenetics. Although these two components of inheritance are purely molecular, they have contrasting properties and carry different components of inheritance so that they need to be separated in order to study their respective roles and complementarities [5,15,19,50].…”

Section: A Brief History Of the Gene Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early in life effects and heredity: reconciling neo-Darwinism with neo-Lamarckism under the banner of the inclusive evolutionary synthesis

Danchin

Pocheville

Huneman

2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Recent discoveries show that early in life effects often have long-lasting influences, sometimes even spanning several generations. Such intergenerational effects of early life events appear not easily reconcilable with strict genetic inheritance. However, an integrative evolutionary medicine of early life effects needs a sound view of inheritance in development and evolution. Here, we show how to articulate the gene-centred and non-gene-centred visions of inheritance. We first recall the coexistence of two gene concepts in scientific discussions, a statistical one (focused on patterns of parent–offspring resemblance, and implicitly including non-DNA-sequence-based resemblance), and a molecular one (based on the DNA sequence). We then show how all the different mechanisms of inheritance recently discovered can be integrated into an inclusive theory of evolution where different mechanisms would enable adaptation to changing environments at different timescales. One surprising consequence of this integrative vision of inheritance is that early in life effects start much earlier than fertilization. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine’.

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“…Il est vrai que l'e ´volution organique a elle aussi produit des millions d'espe `ces « qui n'existaient pas », mais cet acquis informatif a e ´te ´lent, ale ´atoire et cou ˆteux. Au contraire, la pre ´dation culturelle est rapide, finalise ´e et e ´conomique [25]. De ´crire la pre ´dation culturelle, c'est-a `-dire tout ce que nous devons a `nos parents et aux parents de nos parents, depuis la de ´couverte du feu ou des premiers outils, ce serait faire la pre ´histoire et l'histoire de notre espe `ce.…”

Section: La Pre´dation Culturelleunclassified

La prédation informative : vers un nouveau concept d’espèce

Lherminier¹

2018

Comptes Rendus. Biologies

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We distinguish two types of predations: the predation of matter-energy equals the food chain, and the informative predation is the capture of the information brought by the sexual partners. The cell or parent consumes energy and matter to grow, multiply and produce offspring. A fixed amount of resources is divided by the number of organisms, so individual growth and numerical multiplication are limited by depletion resources of the environment. Inversely, fertilization does not destroy information, but instead produces news. The information is multiplied by the number of partners and children, since each fertilization gives rise to a new genome following a combinatorial process that continues without exhaustion. The egg does not swallow the sperm to feed, but exchange good food for quality information. With the discovery of sex, that is, 1.5 Ga ago, life added soft predation to hard predation, i.e. information production within each species to matter-energy flow between species. Replicative and informative structures are subject to two competing biological constraints: replicative fidelity promotes proliferation, but limits adaptive evolution. On the contrary, the offspring of a couple obviously cannot be a copy of both partners, they are a new production, a re-production. Sexual recombination allows the exponential enrichment of the genetic diversity, thus promoting indefinite adaptive and evolutionary capacities. Evolutionary history illustrates this: the bacteria proliferate but have remained at the first purely nutritive stage in which most of the sensory functions, mobility, defense, and feeding have experienced almost no significant novelty in three billion years. Another world appeared with the sexual management of information. Sexual reproduction actually combines two functions: multiplicative by "vertical transfer" and informative by "horizontal transfer". This distinction is very common: polypus - medusa alternations, parasite multiplication cycles, the lytochal and deuterotochal parthenogenesis of aphids, and the innumerable para- and pseudo-sexual strategies of plants opportunistically combine the two modes of asexual replication and sexual combination. However, for the majority of animals and multicellular plants that produce many gametes, numerical proliferation by descendants and informative diversity by sexuality are mutually implicated, for example in the seed. The true discovery of eukaryotes may not be the "true nucleus", as their name implies, but an orderly informative function. The field of recombinations circumscribes a class of partners genetically compatible with each other, each simultaneously prey and predator of the DNA of the other. The mythical Maxwell demon capable of tracing entropy by sorting molecules according to their state does exist: each mate is the other's Maxwell's demon. While a sexless bacterium is simply divided into two cells, two sexual parents work together to produce a single offspring a time. Added to this are the burdens involved in meiosis and crossing-over, cell...

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Mapping Biological Transmission: An Empirical, Dynamical, and Evolutionary Approach

Cited by 6 publications

References 34 publications

The genotype–phenotype distinction: from Mendelian genetics to 21st century biology

The genotype–phenotype distinction: from Mendelian genetics to 21st century biology

Early in life effects and heredity: reconciling neo-Darwinism with neo-Lamarckism under the banner of the inclusive evolutionary synthesis

La prédation informative : vers un nouveau concept d’espèce

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