{"id":270,"date":"2014-08-06T21:57:59","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T21:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshmitteldorf.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=270"},"modified":"2014-08-06T22:00:45","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T22:00:45","slug":"adapt-or-die-adapt-faster-and-beat-the-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/2014\/08\/06\/adapt-or-die-adapt-faster-and-beat-the-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Adapt or Die => Die Sooner to Adapt Faster"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the long run, the ability of a species to evolve is more important than anything else in determining its competitive success. \u00a0This is true almost by definition: given enough time, the ability to adapt and improve will overtake any initial disadvantage.<\/p>\n

But evolutionary theory these last 50 years has been quite skeptical of \u201cin the long run\u201d. \u00a0If it is driven to extinction because of a competitive disadvantage in the short run, then what matters if it has the potential to improve, eventually?<\/p>\n

This has everything to do with aging. \u00a0A population with aging has more diversity and a faster turnover compared to a similar population in which death is only due to famine, predators, disease, etc. \u00a0So – in theory – a population with aging evolves more rapidly than a population that doesn\u2019t age. \u00a0But \u201cthe long run\u201d can be thousands of lifetimes, and in the meantime those individuals that die early (of aging) are at a competitive disadvantage compared to those who continue to live, and have that much more time in which to produce offspring.<\/p>\n

Can an aging population resist invasion (by longer-lived competitors) and cohere long enough that its superior rate of adaptation turns into a decisive advantage? \u00a0This is the question that has been at the center of my research the last dozen years. \u00a0On the one hand, there is abundant evidence that aging is no accident, that it has evolved via natural selection that explicitly favors aging. \u00a0On the other hand, the theoretical argument casts doubt on the scenario where aging is selected on this basis.<\/p>\n

The best resolution I have been able to find for this paradox is that aging has<\/i><\/b> been able to evolve on this basis, and it is because the short-term advantage of unrestrained reproduction has been held in check by a different, faster-acting evolutionary principle than evolvability. Unrestrained reproduction leads to population overshoot, population crash, and extinction. This is a powerful, fast-acting evolutionary force, and populations have had to adapt by tempering individual competitiveness. \u00a0This has created an environment in which the long-term advantage of aging is relevent, and aging as a population-level adaptation can thrive on this basis.<\/p>\n

Here is a press release<\/a> for an article of mine that will appear next month in American Naturalist, demonstrating mathematically how aging might be able to evolve, despite its individual cost, based on increased evolvability at the population level. \u00a0(The cartoon is by my daughter, Maddy Ballard.)<\/p>\n

\"Young<\/a>
Young Orville was given to flights of fancy, and seemed to show no interest in securing a future.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A<\/span>mong members of the educated public, two views of aging predominate: One is that living things wear out like machines, suffering damage that accumulates over time. The other is that aging and death are programmed into the genes to assure space in the niche for the next generation to grow up.<\/p>\n

But both these theories were discredited more than 100 years ago. As to the first, physicists say, \u201cThat\u2019s not the way entropy works.\u201d Concerning the second, evolutionary biologists will tell you, \u201cThat\u2019s not the way natural selection works.\u201d<\/p>\n

So among specialists in evolutionary theory, there is a third theory: Aging did not evolve directly, but rode the coattails of genes that promote fertility early in life. In this paper, two physicists challenge the evolutionists, with a model that demonstrates how \u201cmaking room for the next generation\u201d might be a viable selection mechanism after all.<\/p>\n

Of course, the fact that the model works this way does not imply that nature works this way. But the authors argue that their model explains recent genetic data much better than the standard theory, which was formulated before the modern science of genetics.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany genes that cause aging have now been identified in a number of species grown in the lab,\u201d says Josh Mitteldorf, the paper\u2019s lead author. \u201cMost of these genes have nothing to do with fertility,\u201d contradicting the mainstream evolutionary theory. \u201cSome of these aging genes have ancient roots, going back to the first protozoa, a billion years ago. Any trait that has stuck around so long\u00a0must<\/i>\u00a0have an adaptive function.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAging is a classic case of a conflict between the individual and the community,\u201d says author Andr\u00e9 Martins. \u201cGoing back to the 1960s, the evolutionists have a belief that in such conflicts, it is always the individual interest that prevails. Our model shows otherwise.\u201d In recent years, computer models have played a central role in the rehabilitation of \u201cgroup selection\u201d, and both the authors have previously published computer models in which aging is able to evolve because the group benefit trumps the individual cost.\u00a0Read\u00a0the\u00a0Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the long run, the ability of a species to evolve is more important than anything else in determining its competitive success. \u00a0This is true almost by definition: given enough time, the ability to adapt and improve will overtake any initial disadvantage. But evolutionary theory these last 50 years has been quite skeptical of \u201cin … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAdapt or Die => Die Sooner to Adapt Faster - Josh Mitteldorf<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/2014\/08\/06\/adapt-or-die-adapt-faster-and-beat-the-competition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Adapt or Die => Die Sooner to Adapt Faster\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the long run, the ability of a species to evolve is more important than anything else in determining its competitive success. \u00a0This is true almost by definition: given enough time, the ability to adapt and improve will overtake any initial disadvantage. 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The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. It may be that therapies to slow the progress of aging need not repair or regenerate anything, but only need to interfere with an existing program of self-destruction. Mitteldorf has taught a weekly yoga class for thirty years. He is an advocate for vigorous self care, including exercise, meditation and caloric restriction. After earning a PhD in astrophysicist, Mitteldorf moved to evolutionary biology as a primary field in 1996. He has taught at Harvard, Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, LaSalle and Temple University. He is presently affiliated with MIT as a visiting scholar. In private life, Mitteldorf is an advocate for election integrity as well as public health. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. His two daughters are among the first children adopted from China in the mid-1980s. Much to the surprise of evolutionary biologists, genetic experiments indicate that aging has been selected as an adaptation for its own sake. This poses a conundrum: the impact of aging on individual fitness is wholly negative, so aging must be regarded as a kind of evolutionary altruism. Unlike other forms of evolutionary altruism, aging offers benefits to the community that are weak, and not well focussed on near kin of the altruist. 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The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. It may be that therapies to slow the progress of aging need not repair or regenerate anything, but only need to interfere with an existing program of self-destruction. Mitteldorf has taught a weekly yoga class for thirty years. He is an advocate for vigorous self care, including exercise, meditation and caloric restriction. After earning a PhD in astrophysicist, Mitteldorf moved to evolutionary biology as a primary field in 1996. He has taught at Harvard, Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, LaSalle and Temple University. He is presently affiliated with MIT as a visiting scholar. In private life, Mitteldorf is an advocate for election integrity as well as public health. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. His two daughters are among the first children adopted from China in the mid-1980s. 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