Validating niche-construction theory through path analysis

Abstract

Under the conventional view of evolution, species over time come to exhibit those characteristics that best enable them to survive and reproduce in their preexisting environments. Niche construction provides a second evolutionary route to establishing the adaptive fit, or match, between organism and environment, viewing such matches as dynamical products of a two-way process involving organisms both responding to problems posed by environments as well as setting themselves new problems by changing their environments through further niche construction. Not surprising, the analysis of niche construction is complicated. For example, variables of interest might contain measurement error, or some variables might not be observable. In other cases, variables might not be datable and have to be measured at the same date. A time-series generalization of path analysis, which itself can be viewed as a version of simultaneous-equation analysis, offers a means of highlighting causal relationships in complex systems of niche construction by graphically representing a hypothesis of causality between variables and, in some instances, providing an estimated weight that a hypothesized causal variable has on another variable. Path analysis forces researchers to specify how variables relate to one another and encourages development of clear and logical theories concerning the processes that influence a particular outcome. As we show through a case study-the coevolution of cattle husbandry and the tolerance for milk consumption-path analysis can also call attention to potential areas of weakness and ambiguity in data sets and how they are used in constructing inferences.

Recent origin and evolution of obesity-income correlation across the United States

“…In the past, human niche construction evolved over a time scale of centuries or millennia (Creanza and Feldman, 2016;Milot et al, 2011). For example, the evolution of lactase persistence among Neolithic populations of central Europe was rapid in evolutionary terms but nevertheless took place over thousands of years, in coevolution with the intensification of dairying economies (Brock et al, 2015;Gerbault et al, 2013). In contrast, industrially-processed foods have transformed Western human diets in less than a century.…”

The challenges of documenting coevolution and niche construction: The example of domestic spaces

“…While correlations do not prove a causal connection, correlation analysis can be used to exclude a hypothesized functional connection in time or space. Ideally some version of path analysis, which investigates directed dependencies among a set of variables should be considered 15 …”

Assessing elements of an extended evolutionary synthesis for plant domestication and agricultural origin research

“…Within the last few years, niche construction theory (NCT) (70) has come under active discussion in archaeology with regard to domestication and agricultural origin research (71)(72)(73)(74)(75)(76). Ecologists and evolutionary biologists debate whether NC, "the process whereby organisms, through their metabolism, their activities and their choices, modify their own and/or each other's niches" (ref.…”

“…Because most societies since ancient times have arguably modified environments to some degree, it is both especially important and probably more complicated, when using NCT in human research, to specify and test for the resulting selection pressures and evolutionary change for NC recipients-the ecological inheritances-that make NC a separate evolutionary process and not simply an example of ecological engineering (73,80). …”

“…To test NCT vs. SET arguments regarding environmental modifications and their effects adequately, their dynamic nature and numerous feedbacks need to be explored and, when possible, disentangled, with falsifiable predictions tested against empirical data with attention to and reconstruction of as many proxies of human environmental impacts as possible (see ref. 73 for an extended discussion).…”