Compensation in Organisms and Populations

Abstract

The antecedent chapters justify a generalization about compensating changes in biological adaptability. This generalization, which I call the principle of biological compensation, is: changes in the adaptability of one level or unit of organization tend to be compensated by opposite changes in the adaptability of some other level or unit. The changes in adaptability may be due to changes in the modifiability of units (e.g., culturability, developmental plasticity, gene pool diversity), to changes in the independence of these different modes of modifiability, to changes in the ability to anticipate the environment, or to changes in the indifference to the environment. The latter involve changes in the degree to which regions of the environment or features of them are avoided. Changes in the ability to anticipate the environment may require increases in the absolute magnitudes of the modifiability, independence, and anticipation terms. The total adaptability will tend to increase or decrease if the uncertainty of the environment changes. While the adaptability structure of a biological system is the product of its entire past evolution, the tendency itself is independent of the time scale used to determine the uncertainty of the environment. According to the efficiency arguments, there should always be a tendency for the total adaptability to move in the same direction as the uncertainty of the environment.