Species’ adaptation to their environments occurs via a range of mechanisms of adaptation. These include genetic adaptations as well as non-traditional inheritance mechanisms. We propose to supplement these with another modality of eco-evolutionary dynamics: cases in which adaptation to the environment occurs via what may be called a “distributed adaptation”, in which the adaptation is not conferred via something carried by an individual of the adapted species (as with genes, behavior, or associated microbes), but by some structural or compositional aspect of the population. Put differently, the adaptively relevant information cannot be reduced to information possessed by a single individual, whether genetic or otherwise. Rather, the adaptively relevant information is distributed, and is found strictly at the population level. While human culture is presumably such a case, as may be cases found in social insects, we want to suggest that there are other cases that belong to this category and to explore its evolutionary implications. Joint work with Oren Kolodny (HUJI).
https://humanities.tau.ac.il/cohn/news/research_seminar_27-12-2021
התכנסות לקפה וכיבוד קל בשעה 17:45 ליד חדר 449
יו”ר: שאול קציר
הציבור מוזמן
http://humanities.tau.ac.il/cohn/
* (סמינר מחלקתי מכון כהן 2021/22)