Evolution by natural induction II: further interactions with natural selection

Abstract Natural induction is a different adaptive mechanism from natural selection. It occurs in dynamical systems described by a network of interactions, where connections give way slightly under stress and the system is subject to occasional perturbations. Various biological systems (from gene-regulation networks, to metabolic networks, to ecosystems) meet these basic conditions and therefore have potential to exhibit adaptation by natural induction. In this pair of papers, we consider various ways that natural induction and natural selection might interact. In a scenario of induction-first evolution, discussed in the first paper, a phenotypic adaptation is clearly not a product of natural selection because it appears before any genetic evolution has taken place. This paper discusses more subtle cases, where an interaction of both natural selection and natural induction is involved in producing adaptations. Nonetheless, natural selection alone does not explain these adaptations because they occur at scales where natural selection does not apply. Specifically, in the case of ecosystem adaptation, natural selection does not apply at that organizational scale. And in the evolution of evolvability, natural selection does not apply at the relevant temporal scale. We conclude that evolution by natural induction is a viable process that expands our understanding of evolutionary adaptation.