Developmental Plasticity and Evolution

Rating:
Summary: A vital contribution to evolutionary theory
Review: Developmental Plasticity and Evolution by Mary Jane West-Eberhard is an enormously important contribution to the modern (neo-Darwinian) theory of organic evolution. It presents a new way of understanding evolution. The book teaches us how environmental induction of purely phenotypic events, including learning, can drive evolution, and why a plastic and modular phenotype should replace mutation at the center stage of evolutionary thinking. It is my prediction that this book will precipitate a revolution in thought within biology, but that this will take time, as has any major new idea. Biologists in all fields related to evolution are encouraged to read this work.

The book contains a masterful synthesis of biological facts and theories on the broadest of scales. It unites all disciplines within the biological sciences. It is not, however, merely an impressive review. Rather, it captures a vast collection of data and brilliantly organizes it around a set of fundamental principles about development and evolution from which the main messages of the book are crystallized. Whereas many of the concepts may be described as relatively simple, contemplating the connections between them, as well as their overall unification, becomes an infinitely more challenging and fascinating task. It is from this unification that West-Eberhard's coherent theory of development and evolution blossoms. Expertly guiding the reader from individual concepts to coherent theory, West-Eberhard captures our imagination at every twist and turn, and catapults the reader's mind in a myriad of unexpected directions. The writing is crisp, clean and captivating. The book is filled with exciting and highly felicitous examples from natural history, touching upon the lives of all kinds of organisms, from prions to elm trees and African elephants. The pages are richly textured with detailed examples, illustrations and various intellectual gems. One such delight is a discussion of Darwin's pangenesis theory and how it fails in light of sterile castes in the Hymenoptera.

The book's main contribution to modern evolutionary biology is the revolutionary idea that environmental influences on development, not mutation, are the first order cause of design. This view is a fundamental alteration of emphasis in a field obsessed with genes, genetic drift and mass selection. The book places major emphasis on the importance of genetic accommodation, which occurs when developmentally-mediated changes in the phenotype are molded by quantitative genetic change. The hypothesis of genetic accommodation can be understood as beginning when the environment induces a phenotypic change. This change imposes a new selective regime onto pre-existing polygenic variation. In this way, we are encouraged to understand genes as "followers", as opposed to "leaders" in evolution. The variants can be inherited in subsequent generations if the environmental conditions inducing them are recurrent, and if there is genetic variation underlying the population in the developmental capacity to produce them. Natural selection will favor the spread of a particular environmentally-induced variant when it has positive effects on individual fitness. Although both mutation and environmental induction are considered important modes of initiation of new phenotypic variation, West-Eberhard's argument is that environmental induction is in fact more important.

This thesis challenges the modern gene-centered view of evolution, and in so doing, drives the final nail in the coffin of the "one-gene-one-phenotype" illusion. The book encourages the view that a unified science of evolution can only be achieved with a thorough integration of development into evolutionary biology. To this end, Mary Jane West-Eberhard's treatise is an enormous success. By showing how environmentally influenced development contributes to the origin of novelty in all organisms, the book provides a key missing component of a modern evolutionary theory that biology has been lacking since Darwin. The book is essential reading for all graduate students, researchers and teachers of biology.

Rating:
Summary: A vital contribution to evolutionary theory
Review: Developmental Plasticity and Evolution by Mary Jane West-Eberhard is an enormously important contribution to the modern (neo-Darwinian) theory of organic evolution. It presents a new way of understanding evolution. The book teaches us how environmental induction of purely phenotypic events, including learning, can drive evolution, and why a plastic and modular phenotype should replace mutation at the center stage of evolutionary thinking. It is my prediction that this book will precipitate a revolution in thought within biology, but that this will take time, as has any major new idea. Biologists in all fields related to evolution are encouraged to read this work.

The book contains a masterful synthesis of biological facts and theories on the broadest of scales. It unites all disciplines within the biological sciences. It is not, however, merely an impressive review. Rather, it captures a vast collection of data and brilliantly organizes it around a set of fundamental principles about development and evolution from which the main messages of the book are crystallized. Whereas many of the concepts may be described as relatively simple, contemplating the connections between them, as well as their overall unification, becomes an infinitely more challenging and fascinating task. It is from this unification that West-Eberhard's coherent theory of development and evolution blossoms. Expertly guiding the reader from individual concepts to coherent theory, West-Eberhard captures our imagination at every twist and turn, and catapults the reader's mind in a myriad of unexpected directions. The writing is crisp, clean and captivating. The book is filled with exciting and highly felicitous examples from natural history, touching upon the lives of all kinds of organisms, from prions to elm trees and African elephants. The pages are richly textured with detailed examples, illustrations and various intellectual gems. One such delight is a discussion of Darwin's pangenesis theory and how it fails in light of sterile castes in the Hymenoptera.

The book's main contribution to modern evolutionary biology is the revolutionary idea that environmental influences on development, not mutation, are the first order cause of design. This view is a fundamental alteration of emphasis in a field obsessed with genes, genetic drift and mass selection. The book places major emphasis on the importance of genetic accommodation, which occurs when developmentally-mediated changes in the phenotype are molded by quantitative genetic change. The hypothesis of genetic accommodation can be understood as beginning when the environment induces a phenotypic change. This change imposes a new selective regime onto pre-existing polygenic variation. In this way, we are encouraged to understand genes as "followers", as opposed to "leaders" in evolution. The variants can be inherited in subsequent generations if the environmental conditions inducing them are recurrent, and if there is genetic variation underlying the population in the developmental capacity to produce them. Natural selection will favor the spread of a particular environmentally-induced variant when it has positive effects on individual fitness. Although both mutation and environmental induction are considered important modes of initiation of new phenotypic variation, West-Eberhard's argument is that environmental induction is in fact more important.

This thesis challenges the modern gene-centered view of evolution, and in so doing, drives the final nail in the coffin of the "one-gene-one-phenotype" illusion. The book encourages the view that a unified science of evolution can only be achieved with a thorough integration of development into evolutionary biology. To this end, Mary Jane West-Eberhard's treatise is an enormous success. By showing how environmentally influenced development contributes to the origin of novelty in all organisms, the book provides a key missing component of a modern evolutionary theory that biology has been lacking since Darwin. The book is essential reading for all graduate students, researchers and teachers of biology.

Rating:
Summary: A rich find
Review: Dr Eberhard's volume offers a comprehensive & scholarly treatment of a difficult but timely subject. It is loaded with information on development and developmental plasticity I expect many ecologists, animal behaviorists, and evolutionary biologists will find very useful.---Kay Holekamp

Rating:
Summary: A milestone in the study of phenotypic plasticity
Review: For any evolutionary biologist interested in how evolutionary events are molded and modulated by phenotypic plasticity and developmental processes this book is a "must have". It is a huge, widesweeping review and synthesis of the problem of development and evolution. It will remain as the benchmark for the field for many years. No one can approach this subject without having read this book. In perspective it ranges from the molecular to the macroevolutionary, but always manages to maintain a highly readable style.

Rating:
Summary: A milestone in the study of phenotypic plasticity
Review: For any evolutionary biologist interested in how evolutionary events are molded and modulated by phenotypic plasticity and developmental processes this book is a "must have". It is a huge, widesweeping review and synthesis of the problem of development and evolution. It will remain as the benchmark for the field for many years. No one can approach this subject without having read this book. In perspective it ranges from the molecular to the macroevolutionary, but always manages to maintain a highly readable style.

Rating:
Summary: Evolution and the Genotype-Phenotype Map
Review: For me, West-Eberhard's Developmental Plasticity and Evolution is the most far reaching integration of evolution, ecology and development since Darwin's Origin of Species. This is not merely a review of the literature, it is a book with a definite point of view. In the preface she writes: " The universal environmental responsiveness of organisms, along side genes, influences individual development and organic evolution, and this realization compels us to reexamine the major themes of evolutionary biology in a new light". Like The Origin of Species, this book is meticulous in bringing evidence to bear on each issue. Meticulous does not mean boring! The lucid prose is full of passionate intensity and you follow the author's thinking as you both grapple with each challenge. Along the way, we learn a lot of fascinating biology used as examples to bolster particular ideas.
Who should read this book? Anyone interested in understanding the forces at work in the origin and nature of biodiversity. Undergraduates and graduate students with few vested interests in maintaining narrow disciplinary approaches are the most likely to truly enlarge their world view from reading this work. Will you agree with everything in this large and courageous book? Probably not. Just as we are constantly examining Darwin's propositions, this book challenges us to defend and expand our current thinking. Understanding the interrelations of genes, developmental processes and ecology and their consequences for evolution is an ongoing task and this is the kind of book to shape the discourse in the emerging evo-eco-devo integration for at least a generation to come.