Abstract
In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields.
Highlights
Niche construction refers to any modification by organisms of the states of the niche that they and others inhabit [1,2,3]
Niche construction theory (NCT) casts niche construction and ecological inheritance as bona fide evolutionary processes acting in tandem with standard evolutionary processes like natural selection
We examine some of the predictions of the variational approach to niche construction with regard to (i) the generation of nonrandom, organism-dependent biases on selection pressures; (ii) the consolidation of organism–niche complementarity across temporal scales; and (iii) the cross-generational niche stabilization of environmental conditions. (i) As a corollary of active inference, niche construction has a systematic causal influence on fitness, on average and over time, as it optimizes the attunement of the rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org J
Summary
Niche construction refers to any (implicit or explicit) modification by organisms of the (biotic or abiotic) states of the niche that they and others inhabit [1,2,3]. Niche construction theory (NCT) casts niche construction and ecological inheritance (the inheritance of selection pressures modified by organisms) as bona fide evolutionary processes acting in tandem with standard evolutionary processes like natural selection. The variational (free-energy) approach supports the view of niche construction as a bona fide evolutionary process. It may provide a principled method of quantifying the complementarity that obtains between organisms and their niche via niche construction, as well as a computationally tractable definition of algorithmic information [25] and its transmission via ecological inheritance [3]. The variational approach could provide a promising modelling tool for research on the niche construction perspective
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