Research Seminar December 27th (Hebrew) - Ehud Lamm (Cohn Institute): אדפטציות מבוזרות: כיצד אוכלוסייה יכולה לשמש כמערכת זיכרון?
Monday, December 27th, 18:00, Gilman 449
22 December 2021
אהוד לם - מכון כהן
אדפטציות מבוזרות: כיצד אוכלוסייה יכולה לשמש כמערכת זיכרון?
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).