scholarly journals The natural selection of metabolism and mass selects lifeforms from viruses to multicellular animals

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Witting
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Sexual Reproduction ◽  
Metabolic Pathways ◽  
Net Energy ◽  
Major Life ◽  
Self Replication ◽  
Lower Size ◽  
Initial Selection ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractI show that the natural selection of metabolism and mass is selecting for the major life history and allometric transitions that define lifeforms from viruses, over prokaryotes and larger unicells, to multicellular animals with sexual reproduction.The proposed selection is driven by a mass specific metabolism that is selected as the pace of the resource handling that generates net energy for self-replication. This implies that an initial selection of mass is given by a dependence of mass specific metabolism on mass in replicators that are close to a lower size limit. A maximum dependence that is sublinear is shown to select for virus-like replicators with no intrinsic metabolism, no cell, and practically no mass. A maximum superlinear dependence is instead selecting for prokaryote-like self-replicating cells with asexual reproduction and incomplete metabolic pathways. These self-replicating cells have selection for increased net energy, and this generates a gradual unfolding of a population dynamic feed-back selection from interactive competition. The incomplete feed-back is shown to select for larger unicells with more developed metabolic pathways, and the completely developed feed-back to select for multicellular animals with sexual reproduction.This model unifies natural selection from viruses to multicellular animals, and it provides a parsimonious explanation where allometries and major life history transitions evolve from the natural selection of metabolism and mass.

scholarly journals The natural selection of metabolism and mass selects allometric transitions from prokaryotes to mammals

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Witting
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
The Body ◽  
Net Energy ◽  
A Value ◽  
Spatial Dimensions ◽  
Self Replication ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Evolution Proceeds

AbstractInter-specific body mass allometries can evolve from the natural selection of mass, with ±1/4 and ±3/4 exponents following from the geometry of intra-specific interactions when density dependent foraging occurs in two spatial dimensions (2D, Witting, 1995). The corresponding values for three dimensional interactions (3D) are ±1/6 and ±5/6.But the allometric exponents in mobile organisms are more diverse than the prediction. The exponent for mass specific metabolism tends to cluster around −1/4 and −1/6 in terrestrial and pelagic vertebrates, but it is strongly positive in prokaryotes with an apparent value around 5/6 (DeLong et al., 2010). And a value around zero has been reported in protozoa, and on the macro evolutionary scale from prokaryotes over larger unicells to multicellular vertebrates (Makarieva et al., 2005, 2008).I show that mass specific metabolism can be selected as the pace of the resource handling that generates net energy for self-replication and the selection of mass, and that this selection of metabolism and mass is sufficient to explain metabolic exponents that decline from 5/6 over zero to −1/6 in 3D, and from 3/4 over zero to −1/4 in 2D. The decline follows from a decline in the importance of mass specific metabolism for the selection of mass, and it suggestsi) that the body mass variation in prokaryotes is selected from primary variation in mass specific metabolism,ii) that the variation in multicellular animals are selected from primary variation in the handling and/or densities of the underlying resources,iii) that protozoa are selected as an intermediate lifeform between prokaryotes and multicellular animals, andiv) that macro evolution proceeds along an upper bound on mass specific metabolism.

scholarly journals The natural selection of metabolism explains curvature in fossil body mass evolution

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Witting
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Maximum Mass ◽  
Niche Evolution ◽  
Major Life ◽  
Terrestrial Mammals ◽  
Predicted Values ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractThe natural selection of metabolism and mass can explain inter-specific allometries from prokaryotes to mammals (Witting 2017a), with exponents that depend on the selected metabolism and the spatial dimensionality (2D/3D) of intra-specific behaviour. The predicted 2D-exponent for total metabolism increases from 3/4 to 7/4 when the fraction of the inter-specific body mass variation that follows from primary variation in metabolism increases from zero to one.A 7/4 exponent for mammals has not been reported from inter-specific comparisons, but I detect the full range of allometries for evolution in the fossil record. There are no fossil data for allometric correlations between metabolism and mass, but I estimate life history allometries from the allometry for the rate of evolution in mass (w) in physical time (t).The exponent describes the curvature of body mass evolution, with predicted values being: 3/2 (2D) for within niche evolution in small horses over 54 million years. 5/4 (2D) and 9/8 (3D) for across niche evolution of maximum mass in four mammalian clades. 3/4 (2D) for fast evolution in large horses, and maximum mass in trunked and terrestrial mammals. 1 for maximum mass across major life-forms during 3.5 billion years of evolution along a metabolic bound.

Natural selection of life history attributes: An analytical approach

1974 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard M. Taylor ◽  
Robert S. Gourley ◽  
Charles E. Lawrence ◽  
Robert S. Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Selection Of

The Natural Selection of Minds

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-264
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Rychlak
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Selection Of

Identify This…

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Rebecca Bloom ◽  
Amanda Reynolds ◽  
Rosemary Amore ◽  
Angela Beaman ◽  
Gatenipa Kate Chantem ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Life History ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Women's Voices ◽  
Readers Theater ◽  
Creative Pedagogy ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Selection Of

Readers theater productions are meaningful expressions of creative pedagogy in higher education. This article presents the script of a readers theater called Identify This… A Readers Theater of Women's Voices, which was researched, written, and produced by undergraduate and graduate students in a women's studies class called Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender. Section one of the article reproduces the script of Identify This that was based on life history interviews with a diverse selection of women to illustrate intersectional identities. Section two briefly describes the essential elements of the process we used to create and perform Identify This.

A Court of Specialists

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Hanretty
Keyword(s):  
Family Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Tax Law ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
Uk Supreme Court ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Initial Selection ◽  
Selection Of

This book explains how judges on the UK Supreme Court behave. It looks at different stages in the court's decision-making process—from the initial selection of cases, to the choice of judges to sit on panels, to the final outcome. The main argument of the book is that judges' behavior is strongly affected by their specialism in different areas of law. Cases in tax law (or family law, or public law) are more likely to be heard by specialists in that area, and those specialists are more likely to write the court's decision—or disagree with the decision when there is dissent. Legal factors like specialization in areas of law explains more of the court's work than do political differences between judges.

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