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Phenotype, Niche Construction, and Natural Cellular Engineering

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Cellular-Molecular Mechanisms in Epigenetic Evolutionary Biology

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Abstract

The conventional view of phenotype is that it is an epiphenomenon directly driven by selection. Instead, in a modern context based on the primacy of the unicellular form, phenotype can be re-appraised as a means toward obtaining contemporaneous genetic marks (Torday and Miller 2016c). When the evolutionary imperative is appropriately understood as the strategic derivation of epigenetic marks from the environment and their appropriate assortment through the EUC, its evolutionary meaning shifts away from the natural assumption that its impact necessarily relates to the direct survival advantage of the offspring (Wang et al. 2017). In part, this reflects that epigenetic effects need not be immediately apparent. Although the actual identity of the mechanism that determines the distribution of the epigenetic marks from germ cells to somatic cells is not completely known, it is clear that the unicellular recapitulation is the dominant governing phase, with further adjustments during embryogenesis (Gapp and Bohacek 2018; Wang et al. 2017). In this context, pleiotropy (the production by a single gene of two or more apparently unrelated effects) (Williams 1957), heterochrony (the developmental change in the timing or rate of events, leading to changes in size and shape of organisms) (Torday 2016a), and neoteny (the retention of juvenile features in the adult organism) (Skulachev et al. 2017; Godfrey and Sutherland 1996) can each be understood as mechanisms through which epigenetic inheritance might be governed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deptartment of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harbor–UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA, USA

    John Torday

  2. Physician/Independent researcher, Banner Health/J.C.Lincoln Health Systems, Paradise Valley, AZ, USA

    William Miller Jr.

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Torday, J., Miller Jr., W. (2020). Phenotype, Niche Construction, and Natural Cellular Engineering. In: Cellular-Molecular Mechanisms in Epigenetic Evolutionary Biology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38133-2_11

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