The developmental renaissance in adaptationism

Abstract

From an adaptation perspective, unoccupied patches of morphological space are inferred to be empty because they are of low fitness and selected against. These inferences hinge on venturesome assumptions, because emptiness is explained by low fitness and low fitness is inferred from emptiness. Moreover, non-adaptive factors, such as developmental constraint, could also plausibly account for empty morphospace. In response, biologists increasingly study ontogeny to test the assumption that unobserved phenotypes could be produced if selection were to favor them; finding that empty space morphologies can be readily produced in development helps reject constraint and lends support to adaptive hypotheses. This developmental approach to adaptation calls on manifold techniques, including embryology, artificial selection and comparative methods. Belying their diversity, all of these methods examine the causes of empty morphospace and mark a return of development, long excluded from traditional evolutionary biology, to adaptationist practice.