tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456348657596914237.post6559952582711009673..comments2024-03-28T08:16:02.178-04:00Comments on Eco-Evo Evo-Eco: Eco-evolutionary semanticsBen Hallerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17875404974157070805noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456348657596914237.post-4247608573125076722013-02-17T23:30:23.923-05:002013-02-17T23:30:23.923-05:00I agree with your comment on Darwin. Here is somet...I agree with your comment on Darwin. Here is something from my forthcoming book:<br /><br />------------------------------<br /><br />Darwin (1859) seemingly argued that natural selection was very weak and evolution very slow: “we see nothing of these slow changes in progress until the hand of time has marked the long lapse of ages” (p. 84) and “she can never take a leap, but must always advance by the shortest and slowest steps” (p. 194). Despite a few exceptions that will be noted below, this view of evolution as a sedate force prevailed for the next hundred years and more. Before considering the sea-change that followed, it is worth nothing that Darwin’s “slow” evolution could be closer to our “rapid” evolution than is normally thought. For instance, Darwin (1859, p. 120-123) describes the origin of 14 new species, as well as considerable variation within each, over less than 14,000 generations. Although we now that evolution works even more quickly than this, Darwin clearly realized that evolution could accomplish quite a bit on modest time scales.Andrew Hendryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03653724437118653645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456348657596914237.post-65775028709866777572013-02-17T23:28:28.565-05:002013-02-17T23:28:28.565-05:00SENT BY EMAIL TO ME FROM NELSON HAIRSTON:
I like ...SENT BY EMAIL TO ME FROM NELSON HAIRSTON:<br /><br />I like your explanation of what can or should be included in the scope of eco-evolutionary dynamics, though I argue that the term should be more than a “social identifier”. “Words matter,” as my friends in the humanities like to point out. Without clarity we end up with confusing and nearly meaningless terms: take the degraded meaning of “keystone species” as an example. <br /><br />That comment aside, your final “Darwin forbid” raised something I’ve always wondered about. Did Darwin really think that evolution had to be ponderously slow, or did he just argue that evolution had plenty of time to produce the diversity of life that he was explaining? After all, he started out the Origin discussing the enormous variation that selective breeding had produced in pigeons in a short amount of time. As a supremely keep observer of nature, he surely understood what this might mean for rate of change in natural populations as well. Invoking the great spans of time available for evolution no doubt made it easier to argue for the role of natural selection in producing biological diversity, but did he honestly think that it had to take a long time? In rereading some of the Origin recently I came across the following passage (Darwin 1859, p. 183): “But it is difficult to tell, and immaterial for us, whether habits generally change first and structures afterwards; or whether slight modifications of structures lead to changed habits; both probably often change almost simultaneously.” Since by “habits” Darwin meant behavior (which can be ecological in nature), and by “structures” he meant evolving traits, to me his final phrase sounds remarkably like eco-evolutionary dynamics. Steve Ellner, Monica Geber and I quoted it at the start of our 2011 paper in Ecology Letters. Maybe I am just hoping that this is an indication that Darwin understood that adaptive evolution in natural could be fast. It is possible that he thought that behavior (“habits”) could change only slowly, but this seems harder to argue. Perhaps Darwin scholars have already explored his writings and voluminous correspondence to get a sense of his thinking, in less guarded moments, about the rate of evolution. If not it would seem a topic worth exploring.<br />Andrew Hendryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03653724437118653645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456348657596914237.post-37545414076944445672013-02-17T08:15:29.706-05:002013-02-17T08:15:29.706-05:00How did I not see that coming?How did I not see that coming?Andrew Hendryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03653724437118653645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456348657596914237.post-28294444957807631662013-02-16T08:12:34.698-05:002013-02-16T08:12:34.698-05:00I, for one, am in favour of switching to the REED ...I, for one, am in favour of switching to the REED acronym...Tom Reedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12432794029974332238noreply@blogger.com