Niche inheritance: a cooperative pathway to enhance cancer cell fitness though ecosystem engineering

Cancer cells can be described as an invasive species that is able to establish itself in a new environment. The concept of niche construction can be utilized to describe the process by which cancer cells terraform their environment, thereby engineering an ecosystem that promotes the genetic fitness of the species. Ecological dispersion theory can then be utilized to describe and model the steps and barriers involved in a successful diaspora as the cancer cells leave the original host organ and migrate to new host organs to successfully establish a new metastatic community. These ecological concepts can be further utilized to define new diagnostic and therapeutic areas for lethal cancers.Comment: 8 pages, 1 Table, 4 Figure

Developmental Symbiosis Facilitates The Multiple Origins Of Herbivory

Developmental bias toward particular evolutionary trajectories can be facilitated through symbiosis. Organisms are holobionts, consisting of zygote‐derived cells and a consortia of microbes, and the development, physiology, and immunity of animals are properties of complex interactions between the zygote‐derived cells and microbial symbionts. Such symbionts can be agents of developmental plasticity, allowing an organism to develop in particular directions. This plasticity can lead to genetic assimilation either through the incorporation of microbial genes into host genomes or through the direct maternal transmission of the microbes. Such plasticity can lead to niche construction, enabling the microbes to remodel host anatomy and/or physiology. In this article, I will focus on the ability of symbionts to bias development toward the evolution of herbivory. I will posit that the behavioral and morphological manifestations of herbivorous phenotypes must be preceded by the successful establishment of a community of symbiotic microbes that can digest cell walls and detoxify plant poisons. The ability of holobionts to digest plant materials can range from being a plastic trait, dependent on the transient incorporation of environmental microbes, to becoming a heritable trait of the holobiont organism, transmitted through the maternal propagation of symbionts or their genes

Gravel pits support waterbird diversity in an urban landscape

We assessed the benefit of 11 gravel pits for the settlement of waterbird communities in an urbanized area lacking natural wetlands. Gravel pits captured 57% of the regional species pool of aquatic birds. We identified 39 species, among which five were regionally rare. We used the Self Organizing Map algorithm to calculate the probabilities of presence of species, and to bring out habitat conditions that predict assemblage patterns. The age of the pits did not correlate with assemblage composition and species richness. There was a positive influence of macrophyte cover on waterbird species richness. Larger pits did not support more species, but species richness increased with connectivity. As alternative wetland habitats, gravel pits are attractive to waterbirds, when they act as stepping stones that ensure connectivity between larger natural and/or artificial wetlands separated in space

Civilisation and Human Niche Construction

This short paper introduces the special section "Civilisation and the Construction of the Human Niche", organised by the ‘Domestication, Niche Construction and the Anthropocene’ research network at the UCL Institute of Archaeology

A niche perspective on the range expansion of symbionts

Range expansion results from complex eco-evolutionary processes where range dynamics and niche shifts interact in a novel physical space and/or environment, with scale playing a major role. Obligate symbionts (i.e. organisms permanently living on hosts) differ from free-living organisms in that they depend on strong biotic interactions with their hosts which alter their niche and spatial dynamics. A symbiotic lifestyle modifies organism–environment relationships across levels of organisation, from individuals to geographical ranges. These changes influence how symbionts experience colonisation and, by extension, range expansion. Here, we investigate the potential implications of a symbiotic lifestyle on range expansion capacity. We present a unified conceptual overview on range expansion of symbionts that integrates concepts grounded in niche and metapopulation theories. Overall, we explain how niche-driven and dispersal-driven processes govern symbiont range dynamics through their interaction across scales, from host switching to geographical range shifts. First, we describe a background framework for range dynamics based on metapopulation concepts applied to symbiont organisation levels. Then, we integrate metapopulation processes operating in the physical space with niche dynamics grounded in the environmental arena. For this purpose, we provide a definition of the biotope (i.e. living place) specific to symbionts as a hinge concept to link the physical and environmental spaces, wherein the biotope unit is a metapopulation patch (either a host individual or a land fragment). Further, we highlight the dual nature of the symbionts' niche, which is characterised by both host traits and the external environment, and define proper conceptual variants to provide a meaningful unification of niche, biotope and symbiont organisation levels. We also explore variation across systems in the relative relevance of both external environment and host traits to the symbiont's niche and their potential implications on range expansion. We describe in detail the potential mechanisms by which hosts, through their function as biotopes, could influence how some symbionts expand their range – depending on the life history and traits of both associates. From the spatial point of view, hosts can extend symbiont dispersal range via host-mediated dispersal, although the requirement for among-host dispersal can challenge symbiont range expansion. From the niche point of view, homeostatic properties of host bodies may allow symbiont populations to become insensitive to off-host environmental gradients during host-mediated dispersal. These two potential benefits of the symbiont–host interaction can enhance symbiont range expansion capacity. On the other hand, the central role of hosts governing the symbiont niche makes symbionts strongly dependent on the availability of suitable hosts. Thus, environmental, dispersal and biotic barriers faced by suitable hosts apply also to the symbiont, unless eventual opportunities for host switching allow the symbiont to expand its repertoire of suitable hosts (thus expanding its fundamental niche). Finally, symbionts can also improve their range expansion capacity through their impacts on hosts, via protecting their affiliated hosts from environmental harshness through biotic facilitation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Hierarchy Theory of Evolution and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Some Epistemic Bridges, Some Conceptual Rifts

Contemporary evolutionary biology comprises a plural landscape of multiple co-existent conceptual frameworks and strenuous voices that disagree on the nature and scope of evolutionary theory. Since the mid-eighties, some of these conceptual frameworks have denounced the ontologies of the Modern Synthesis and of the updated Standard Theory of Evolution as unfinished or even flawed. In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge’s Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (with its proposal of an extended ontology of evolutionary processes), in an attempt to map some epistemic bridges (e.g. compatible views of causation; niche construction) and some conceptual rifts (e.g. extra-genetic inheritance; different perspectives on macroevolution; contrasting standpoints held in the “externalism–internalism” debate) that exist between them. This paper seeks to encourage theoretical, philosophical and historiographical discussions about pluralism or the possible unification of contemporary evolutionary biology

Triadic (ecological, neural, cognitive) niche construction: a scenario of human brain evolution extrapolating tool use and language from the control of reaching actions

Hominin evolution has involved a continuous process of addition of new kinds of cognitive capacity, including those relating to manufacture and use of tools and to the establishment of linguistic faculties. The dramatic expansion of the brain that accompanied additions of new functional areas would have supported such continuous evolution. Extended brain functions would have driven rapid and drastic changes in the hominin ecological niche, which in turn demanded further brain resources to adapt to it. In this way, humans have constructed a novel niche in each of the ecological, cognitive and neural domains, whose interactions accelerated their individual evolution through a process of triadic niche construction. Human higher cognitive activity can therefore be viewed holistically as one component in a terrestrial ecosystem. The brain's functional characteristics seem to play a key role in this triadic interaction. We advance a speculative argument about the origins of its neurobiological mechanisms, as an extension (with wider scope) of the evolutionary principles of adaptive function in the animal nervous system. The brain mechanisms that subserve tool use may bridge the gap between gesture and language—the site of such integration seems to be the parietal and extending opercular cortices