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A variational approach to niche construction
In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate,...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5938575/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29643221 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2017.0685 |
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author | Constant, Axel Ramstead, Maxwell J. D. Veissière, Samuel P. L. Campbell, John O. Friston, Karl J. |
author_facet | Constant, Axel Ramstead, Maxwell J. D. Veissière, Samuel P. L. Campbell, John O. Friston, Karl J. |
author_sort | Constant, Axel |
collection | PubMed |
description | In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5938575 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59385752018-05-08 A variational approach to niche construction Constant, Axel Ramstead, Maxwell J. D. Veissière, Samuel P. L. Campbell, John O. Friston, Karl J. J R Soc Interface Review Articles In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields. The Royal Society 2018-04 2018-04-11 /pmc/articles/PMC5938575/ /pubmed/29643221 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2017.0685 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Review Articles Constant, Axel Ramstead, Maxwell J. D. Veissière, Samuel P. L. Campbell, John O. Friston, Karl J. A variational approach to niche construction |
title | A variational approach to niche construction |
title_full | A variational approach to niche construction |
title_fullStr | A variational approach to niche construction |
title_full_unstemmed | A variational approach to niche construction |
title_short | A variational approach to niche construction |
title_sort | variational approach to niche construction |
topic | Review Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5938575/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29643221 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2017.0685 |
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