Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-zlgnt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T21:43:57.784Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Making the Most of Clade Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

W. Ford Doolittle
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Clade selection is unpopular with philosophers who otherwise accept multilevel selection theory. Clades cannot reproduce, and reproduction is widely thought necessary for evolution by natural selection, especially of complex adaptations. Using microbial evolutionary processes as heuristics, I argue contrariwise that (1) clade growth (proliferation of contained species) substitutes for clade reproduction in the evolution of complex adaptation, (2) clade-level properties favoring persistence—species richness, dispersal, divergence, and possibly intraclade cooperation—are not collapsible into species-level traits, (3) such properties can be maintained by selection on clades, and (4) clade selection extends the explanatory power of the theory of evolution.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 275 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

I thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (grant GLDSU 447989) for support; Austin Booth, Carlos Mariscal, Tyler Brunet, Letitia Meynell, Rich Campbell, and other members of Dalhousie’s Evolution Study Group for advice and comments; and Frédéric Bouchard for inspiration.

References

Amundson, Ron. 1996. “Historical Development of the Concept of Adaptation.” In Adaptation, ed. Rose, Michael R. and Lauder, George V., 11–53. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Arnold, Anthony J., and Fristrup, Kurt. 1982. “The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection: A Hierarchical Expansion.” Paleobiology 8:113–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Stevan J. 2014. “Phenotypic Evolution: The Ongoing Synthesis.” American Naturalist 183 (6): 729–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bedau, Mark. 1991. “Can Biological Teleology Be Naturalized?” Journal of Philosophy 88 (11): 647–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouchard, Frederic. 2008. “Causal Processes, Fitness and the Differential Persistence of Lineages.” Philosophy of Science 75:560–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouchard, Frederic 2011. “Darwinism without Populations: A More Inclusive Understanding of the ‘Survival of the Fittest.’” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42:106–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouchard, Frederic 2014. “Ecosystem Evolution Is about Variation and Persistence, Not Populations and Reproduction.” Biological Theory 9:382–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chopra, Aditya, and Lineweaver, Charles H.. 2016. “The Case for a Gaian Bottleneck: The Biology of Habitability.” Astrobiology 16:7–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damuth, John. 1985. “Selection among ‘Species’: A Formulation in Terms of Natural Functional Units.” Evolution 39:1132–46.Google ScholarPubMed
Damuth, John, and Heisler, Lorraine. 1988. “Alternative Formulations of Multilevel Selection.” Biology and Philosophy 3:407–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, Richard 2010. “Universal Darwinism.” In The Nature of Life, ed. Bedau, M. A. and Cleland, C. E., 360–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Depew, David J., and Weber, Bruce H.. 2011. “The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution after the Modern Synthesis.” Biological Theory 6:89–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doolittle, W. Ford. 2014. “Natural Selection for Survival Alone, and the Possibility of Gaia.” Biology and Philosophy 29:415–23.Google Scholar
Dussault, Antoine C., and Bouchard, Frédéric. 2016. “A Persistence Enhancing Propensity Account of Ecological Function to Explain Ecosystem Evolution.” Synthese. doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1065-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dykhuizen, Daniel E., and Hartl, Daniel L.. 1983. “Selection in Chemostats.” Microbiological Reviews 47:150–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elena, Santiago F., and Lenski, Richard E.. 2003. “Evolution Experiments with Microorganisms: The Dynamics and Genetic Basis of Adaptation.” Nature Reviews Genetics 4:457–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnegan, Seth, Heim, Noel A., Peters, Shanan E., and Fischer, Woodward W.. 2012. “Climate Change and the Selective Signature of the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109:6829–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forber, Patrick. 2013. “Debating the Power and Scope of Natural Selection.” In The Philosophy of Biology: A Companion for Educators, ed. Kampourakis, K., 145–60. Berlin: Springer Science.Google Scholar
Fullmer, Matthew S., Soucy, Shannon M., and Gogarten, J. Peter. 2015. “The Pan-Genome as a Shared Genomic Resource: Mutual Cheating, Cooperation and the Black Queen Hypothesis.” Frontiers in Microbiology 6:278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ghiselin, Michael. 1974. “A Radical Solution to the Species Problem.” Systematic Biology 23:536–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2009. Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter 2012. “Darwinism and Cultural Change.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367:2160–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Godfrey-Smith, Peter 2015. Philosophy of Biology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen J. 1983. “The Hardening of the Modern Synthesis.” In Dimensions of Darwinism, ed. Grene, M., 71–93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grene, M. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen J., and Lloyd, Elizabeth A.. 1999. “Individuality and Adaptation across Levels of Selection: How Shall We Name and Generalize the Unit of Darwinism?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 96 (21): 11904–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grantham, Todd A. 1995. “Hierarchical Approaches to Macroevolution: Recent Work on Species Selection and the ‘Effect Hypothesis.’” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 26:301–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haber, Matthew H., and Hamilton, Andrew. 2005. “Coherence, Consistency, and Cohesion: Clade Selection in Okasha and Beyond.” Philosophy of Science 72:1026–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Andrew, and Haber, Matthew H.. 2006. “Clades Are Reproducers.” Biological Theory 1:381–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, Garrett. 1960. “The Competitive Exclusion Principle.” Science 131 (3409): 1292–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoehn, Kenneth B., Harnik, Paul G., and Roth, V. Louise. 2016. “A Framework for Detecting Natural Selection on Traits Above the Species Level.” Methods in Ecology and Evolution 7:331–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, David L. 1976. “Are Species Really Individuals?” Systematic Biology 25:174–91.Google Scholar
Hull, David L. 1980. “Individuality and Selection.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 11:311–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, Gene, Hopkins, Melanie J., and Lidgard, Scott. 2015. “Simple versus Complex Models of Trait Evolution and Stasis as a Response to Environmental Change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 112 (16): 4885–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablonski, David. 1986. “Background and Mass Extinctions: The Alternation of Macroevolutionary Regimes.” Science 231:129–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablonski, David 2001. “Lessons from the Past: Evolutionary Impacts of Mass Extinctions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98:5393–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablonski, David 2007. “Scale and Hierarchy in Macroevolution.” Paleontology 50:87–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jablonski, David 2008. “Species Selection: Theory and Data.” Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 39:501–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jankovic, Srdja, and Cirkovic, Milan M.. 2016. “Evolvability Is Evolved Ability: The Coding Concept as the Arch-Unit of Natural Selection.” Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres 46:67–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kirschner, Marc, and Gerhart, John. 1998. “Evolvability.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 95:8420–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leroi, Armand M. 2000. “The Scale Independence of Evolution.” Evolution and Development 2:67–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewontin, Richard C. 1970. “The Units of Selection.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1:1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, Bruce S., and Vrba, Elisabeth S.. 2005. “Stephen Jay in Species Selection: 30 Years of Insight.” Paleobiology 31 (2): 113–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longrich, Nichola R., Bhullar, Bhart-Anjan S., and Gauthier, Jacques A.. 2012. “Mass Extinction of Lizards and Snakes at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109:21396–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayhew, Peter J. 2007. “Why Are There So Many Insect Species? Perspectives from Fossils and Phylogenies.” Biological Reviews 82 (3): 425–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maynard Smith, John. 1969. “The Status of ‘Neo-Darwinism.’” In Towards a Theoretical Biology, ed. Waddington, C. H., 82–90. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Waddington, C. H. 1988. Did Darwin Get It Right? New York: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, John, and Szathmary, Eors. 1995. The Major Transitions in Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McInerney, James O., Pisani, Davide, Bapteste, Eric, and O’Connell, Mary J.. 2011. “The Public Goods Hypothesis for the Evolution of Life on Earth.” Biology Direct 6:41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKinney, Michael L. 1997. “Extinction Vulnerability and Selectivity: Combining Ecological and Paleontological View.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 28:495–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McShea, Daniel W., and Brandon, Robert N.. 2010. Biology’s First Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. J., Lenski, R., and Zinser, E. R.. 2012. “The Black Queen Hypothesis: Evolution of Dependencies through Adaptive Gene Loss.” MBio 3 (2): e00036–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Notley-McRobb, Lucinda, and Ferenci, Tom. 2000. “Experimental Analysis of Molecular Events during Mutational Periodic Selections in Bacterial Evolution.” Genetics 156:1493–1501.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Okasha, Samir. 2001. “Why Won’t the Group Selection Controversy Go Away?” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52:25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okasha, Samir 2003. “Does the Concept of ‘Clade Selection’ Make Sense?” Philosophy of Science 70:739–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okasha, Samir 2005. “Multilevel Selection and the Major Transitions in Evolution.” Philosophy of Science 72 (5): 1013–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okasha, Samir 2006. Evolution and the Levels of Selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okasha, Samir 2011. “Biological Ontology and Hierarchical Organization: A Defense of Rank Freedom.” In The Major Transitions in Evolution Revisited, ed. Calcott, B. and Sterelny, K., 53–64. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, K. 2014. “Emergent Group Traits, Reproduction, and Levels of Selection.” Commentary on P. E. Smaldino, “The Cultural Evolution of Emergent-Level Traits.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37:243–95.Google Scholar
Pepper, John W. 2003. “The Evolution of Evolvability in Genetic Linkage Patterns.” Biosystems 69:115–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pigliucci, Massimo. 2008a. “Is Evolvability Evolvable?” Nature Reviews Genetics 9:75–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pigliucci, Massimo 2008b. “The Proper Role of Population Genetics in Modern Evolutionary Theory.” Biological Theory 3 (4): 316–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabosky, Daniel L. 2015. “Reproductive Isolation and the Causes of Speciation Rate Variation in Nature.” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. doi:10.1111/bij.12703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabosky, Daniel L., and McCune, Amy R.. 2009. “Reinventing Species Selection with Molecular Phylogenies.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 25:68–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rao, Veena, and Nanjundiah, Vidyanand. 2011. “J.B.S. Haldane, Ernst Mayr and the Beanbag Genetics Dispute.” Journal of the History of Biology 44:233–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, David M. 1991. Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Rieppel, Olivier. 2008. “Do Clades Cladogenerate?” Biological Theory 3:375–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Dena M., and Marcot, Jonathan D.. 2015. “The Fossil Record and Macroevolutionary History of the Beetles.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 282:2015060.Google ScholarPubMed
Smocovitis, Vassiliki B. 1992. “Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology.” Journal of the History of Biology 25:1–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sober, Elliott. 1992. “Screening-Off and the Units of Selection.” Philosophy of Science 59:142–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, Steven M. 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Sterelny, Kim. 2001. The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Toprak, Erdal, Veres, Adrian, Michel, Jean-Baptiste, Chait, Remy, Hartl, Daniel L., and Kishony, Roy. 2011. “Evolutionary Paths to Antibiotic Resistance under Dynamically Sustained Drug Stress.” Nature Genetics 44:101–5.Google Scholar
Tyrrell, Toby. 2013. On Gaia: A Critical Investigation of the Relationship between Life and Earth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Van Valen, Leigh. 1989. “Three Paradigms of Evolution.” Evolutionary Theory 9:1–17.Google Scholar
Van Valen, Leigh 1994. “Concepts and the Nature of Selection by Extinction: Is Generalization Possible?” In The Mass Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis, ed. Glen, W., 200–216. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Vetsigian, Kalin, Woese, Carl, and Goldenfeld, Nigel. 2006. “Collective Evolution and the Genetic Code.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103 (28): 10696–701.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vrba, Elisabeth S. 1983. “Macroevolutionary Trends: New Perspectives on the Roles of Adaptation and Incidental Effect.” Science 221:387–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vrba, Elisabeth S., and Eldredge, Niles. 1984. “Individuals, Hierarchies and Processes: Towards a More Complete Evolutionary Theory.” Paleobiology 10:146–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vrba, Elisabeth S., and Gould, Stephen J.. 1986. “The Hierarchical Expansion of Sorting and Selection: Sorting and Selection Cannot Be Equated.” Paleobiology 12:217–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Gunter P., and Altenberg, Lee. 1996. “Complex Adaptations and the Evolution of Evolvabilty.” Evolution 50:967–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Peter J., and Estabrook, George F.. 2014. “Trait-Based Diversification Shifts Reflect Differential Extinction among Fossil Taxa.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111:16419–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Watson, Richard A., and Szathmary, Eors. 2016. “How Can Evolution Learn?” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 31:147–57.Google ScholarPubMed
Williams, George C. 1966. Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Zhaxybayeva, Olga, and Gogarten, J. Peter. 2004. “Cladogenesis, Coalescence and the Evolution of the Three Domains of Life.” Trends in Genetics 20:182–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed