What is it about?
In a long timescale, the ability of evolutionary lineages to evolve does evolve as well. This process is called "evolution of evolvability" and it has major consequences for the scope and direction of future evolutionary changes. It is increasingly supported that the ability of lineages to evolve changes to mirror their environment. Therefore, it is analogical to learning. The same process, however, may lead to accumulation of further unchangeable elements of organisms and slowing down of their evolution. Several processes that might slow down, stop or even reverse this process are reviewed. However, there is evidence that the ability of evolutionary lineages to produce major evolutionary novelties decrease, especially in sexual organisms.
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Why is it important?
Evolution of evolvability is usually conceived as positive metaadaptation that improves the ability of organisms to adapt and enables them to reach complex organisations of their bodies. We show that it has another, darker, side that manifests in the long time, hampers more prominent evolutionary changes and has major evolutionary consequences.
Perspectives
Besides of linking biosemiotics, modern synthesis and extended synthesis, this theoretical paper presents macroevolutionary consequences of our Frozen evolution theory. Acknowledging the role of stability-based sorting, which was described in detail in our 2017 publication in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, we predict that evolution of sexual lineages should slow down or even stop in the long term. Bizzare on the first sight, there is, in fact, evidence that supports this claim. Moreover, this process may lead to several macroevolutionary trends including the trend of increasing hierarchical complexity in the history of life on Earth. This is presented in our 2018 publication in the journal Evolutionary Biology.
Jan Toman
Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague
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This page is a summary of: Macroevolutionary Freezing and the Janusian Nature of Evolvability: Is the Evolution (of Profound Biological Novelty) Going to End?, Biosemiotics, May 2018, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s12304-018-9326-y.
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