New findings: What is the topic of this review? Revisiting the 2013 article 'Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology'. What advances does it highlight? The discovery that the genome is not isolated from the soma and the environment, and that there is no barrier preventing somatic characteristics being transmitted to the germline, means that Darwin's pangenetic ideas become relevant again.
Abstract: Charles Darwin spent the last decade of his life collaborating with physiologists in search of the biological processes of evolution. He viewed physiology as the way forward in answering fundamental questions about inheritance, acquired characteristics, and the mechanisms by which organisms could achieve their ends and survival. He collaborated with 19th century physiologists, notably John Burdon-Sanderson and George Romanes, in his search for the mechanisms of transgenerational inheritance. The discovery that the genome is not isolated from the soma and the environment, and that there is no barrier preventing somatic characteristics being transmitted to the germline, means that Darwin's pangenetic ideas become relevant again. It is time for 21st century physiology to come to the rescue of evolutionary biology. This article outlines research lines by which this could be achieved.
Keywords: Charles Darwin; George Romanes; John Burdon-Sanderson; evolutionary biology; extracellular vesicles; inheritance of acquired characteristics; pangenesis.
© 2022 The Authors. Experimental Physiology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Physiological Society.