Adaptation between flowers and pollinators

[ap.vanduijn]

Dear Mats, Anastassia, dear all,

After reading the "Critical remarks on BR" I would like to add a few words. Specifically with regards to the following part of the discussion:

"There is adaptation as a state (sometimes referred to as adaption) and adaptation as a process. The state of adaptation refers to the observation that there is a strict correlation between properties of different organisms that are essential for their survival. This correlation is not just compatible with biotic regulation but constitutes the essence of it. The various species are correlated to each other as are the parts of a complex machine. The properties of the machine as a whole are correlated with the properties of the environment where it works and which it controls. It cannot be otherwise. The biotic regulation mechanism may evolve, but this evolution will preserve the correlation between its parts. I am still not sure about what you are aiming at. To attain a state of adaptation is a process that I would call adaptation. Example: For flowers and pollinaters to become so exceedingly well adapted to each other, it seems to me that they have gone through a process that could be called adaptation. But I am rather ignorant also about this. I shall try to understand a little more about ecology and information, using some of the references you have provided."

I would like to add how I imagine the "adaptation" between flowers and pollinators that Mats refers to in his example. I emphasis that this is how I imagine it. I'm not claiming it to be the truth. However, I hope it may be useful for Mats and this particular part of the discussion. 

After reading some of the work of G&M, Keith Skene and Robert Ulanowicz I imagine this in a certain way following an extinction level event like the impact of a meteorite. Skene (who is very familiar with the work of G&M) argues that there is a thermodynamic framework for evolutionary tempo, where life diffuses into available ecological space. As he puts it, speciation occurs in the empty marketplaces, not in the crowded back-alleys. Opportunity, not competition, characterises this phase. A meteorite impact seems like such an opportunity. In my perspective this phase is similar to a situation of resource abundance as described by G&M when competitive interaction and stabilising selection are absent. According to Skene speciation slows when ecological space starts to become saturated. This in when competition and natural selection kick in. This is where Ulanowicz’s work on self-sustaining autocatalytic networks fits well into this narrative. In autocatalytic networks disparate elements are joined in cycling systems. Ulanowicz defines autocatalysis as any manifestation of a positive feedback loop wherein the direct effect of every link on its downstream neighbour is positive. I imagine that when ecological space starts to become saturated such self-sustaining networks start to form. When (because of saturation of ecological space) these networks start to touch/overlap, competition among the associated configurations becomes the inevitable result. I view this as the moment when normal ecological communities (tree/host plus microbiome) start to form and enter in competitive interaction and stabilising selection.

This is how I imagine adaptation between Mats' flowers and pollinators. 

Best regards,

Arie