Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-10T12:23:10.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Domestication of Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Raymond P. Coppinger  and
Charles Kay Smith
Raymond P. Coppinger
Affiliation:
Professor of Biology, Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002, USA
Charles Kay Smith
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A coming ‘Age of Interdependent Forms’ seems destined to mark the success of what could be called ‘despecialized/interspecific fitness’ among neotenic strains (perpetuating juvenile traits) of species such as humans and domestic animals. Humans as well as the first domesticants underwent a neotenic evolution in the wild during the repeated interglacial periods which, acting on a number of mammalian forms, selected against adult species-specific ancestral adaptations to a stable environment. Neotenic species continue to look and behave more like ancestral youths than adults—even after sexual maturity and throughout their life-history. As they retain lifelong youthful dependency motivations, they can easily, under suitable conditions, become interdependent forms. By the time of melting of the last Pleistocene glacier, all the domestic partners had already become more dependency-prone than formerly, and were behaviourally despecialized enough to form the alliance that is now changing the order of Nature.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , Winter 1983 , pp. 283 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alberch, Père (1980). Ontogenesis and morphological diversification. American Zoologist, 20, pp. 653–67, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, George W. (1981). Origin of corn: pollen evidence. Science, 213, pp. 890–2, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
SirBeer, Gavin de (1958). Embryos and Ancestors (3rd edn). Clarendon Press, Oxford, England, UK: ix + 197 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Bekoff, Marc (1972). The development of social interaction, play and metacommunication in mammals: an ethological perspective. Quarterly Review of Biology, 47, pp. 412–34, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belyaev, D.K. (1979). Destabilizing selection as a factor in domestication. Journal of Heredity, 70, pp. 301–8, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brink, A.S. (1956). Speculations on some advanced mammalian characteristics in the higher mammal-like reptiles. Palaeontologia Africana, 4, pp. 77–96, illustr.Google Scholar
Brown, Jerram L. (1975). The Evolution of Behavior. W.W. Norton, New York, NY, USA: xix + 761 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Clutton-Brock, Juliet (1981). Domesticated Animals from Early Times. University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, USA: 208 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Coppinger, Raymond P. & Coppinger, Lorna (1982). Dogs in sheep's clothing guard flocks. Smithsonian, 04, pp. 64–73, illustr.Google Scholar
Coppinger, Raymond P. & Smith, Charles Kay (1983). Forever young. The Sciences, 23(3), pp. 50–4, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1859). The Origin of Species (1967 Facsimile of 1st edn). Atheneum, New York, NY, USA: ix + 502 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1868). The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. John Murray, London, England, UK: 2 vols., illustr.Google Scholar
Denton, George H. & Hugues, Terrence J. (Ed.) (1981). The Last Great Ice Sheets. Wiley-Interscience, New York, NY, USA: xviii + 484 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Paul & Ehrlich, Anne H. (1981). Extinction. Random House, New York, NY, USA: xiv + 305 pp.Google Scholar
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenaus (1970). Ethology. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, NY, USA: xiv + 530 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Eldredge, Niles & Gould, Stephen Jay (1972). Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism. Pp. 82–115 in Models in Paleobiology (Ed. Schopf, T.J.M.). Freeman, Cooper, San Francisco, California, USA: vi + 250 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Fagen, Robert (1981). Animal Play Behavior. Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford: xvii + 305 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Fentress, John C. (1983). A view of ontogeny. Pp. 24–64 in Advances in the Study of Mammalian Behavior (Ed. Eisenberg, John F. & Kleiman, Devra G.). Special Publication No. 7, American Society of Mammalogists, xvi + 753 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Fox, Michael W. (1971). Behavior of Wolves, Dogs and Related Canids. Harper & Row, New York—Evanston—San Francisco—London: 220 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Fox, Michael W. (1978). The Dog: its Domestication and Behavior. Garland STPM Press, New York & London: vii + 296 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Garstang, Walter (1922). The theory of recapitulation: a critical restatement of the biogenetic law. Journal of the Linnean Society of London, Zoology, 35, pp. 81–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geist, Valerius (1971). Mountain Sheep: A Study in Behavior and Evolution. University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London: xv + 383 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay (1977). Ontogeny and Phytogeny. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: ix + 501 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay (1982 a). Free to be extinct. Natural History, 91(8), pp. 12–6.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay (1982 b). Darwinism and the expansion of evolutionary theory. Science, 216, pp. 380–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guerrant, Edward O. Jr (1982). Neotenic evolution of Delphinium nudicaule (Ranunculaceae): a humingbird-pollinated larkspur. Evolution, 36(4), pp. 699–712, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hafez, E.S.E. (Ed.) (1975). The Behaviour of Domestic Animals (3rd edn). Baillière Tindall, London, England, UK: xii + 532 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Haldane, J.B.S. (1932). The time of action of genes and its bearing on some evolutionary problems. American Naturalist, 66, pp. 5–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SirHardy, Alister C. (1954). Escape from specialization. Pp. 1221–42 in Evolution as a Process (Ed. Huxley, Julian et al. ). George Allen & Unwin, London, England, UK: 367 pp., illustr. pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Hendrichs, Hubert (1983). On the evolution of social structure in mammals. Pp. 738–50 in Advances in the Study of Mammalian Behavior (Ed. Eisenberg, John F. & Kleiman, Devra G.). Special Publication No. 7, American Society of Mammalogists, xvi + 753 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Johnson, Johnny (1983). The garbage eagles. Natural History, 92(8), pp. 42–5, illustr.Google Scholar
Kerr, Richard A. (1981). Milankovitch climate cycles: old and unsteady. Science, 213, pp. 1095–6, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klopfer, P.H. & Hailman, J.P. (1974). An Introduction to Animal Behavior (2nd edn). Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA: xiv + 332 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Kohn, David (1981). On the origin of the principle of diversity. Science, 213, pp. 1105–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kollmann, Julius (1885). Das Uberwintern von europaischen Frosch- und Triton-larven und die Umwandlung des mexikanischen Axolotl. Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft (Basel), 7, pp. 387–98.Google Scholar
Lewin, Roger (1981). Seeds of change in embryonic development. Science, 214, pp. 42–4, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewin, Roger (1982). Extinction leaves its mark on ecology. Science, 218, pp. 42–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lorenz, Konrad (1961). King Solomon's Ring: New Light on Animal Ways. Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, NY, USA: 202 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Konrad (1965). Evolution and Modification of Behavior. University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London: 121 pp.Google Scholar
MacArthur, Robert H. & Wilson, Edward O. (1967). The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA: xi + 203 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Mason, William A. (1968). Early social deprivation in the nonhuman primates: implications for human behavior. Pp. 70–101 in Environmental Influences (Ed. Glass, David C.). Rockefeller University Press and Russell Sage Foundation, New York, NY, USA: ix + 304 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Miller, David B. & Gottlieb, Gilbert (1981). Effects of domestication on production and perception of mallard maternal alarm calls: developmental lag in behavioral arousal. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 92(2), pp. 205–19, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montagu, M.F. Ashley (1962). Time, morphology, and neoteny, in the evolution of Man. Pp. 324–42, illustr., in Culture and the Evolution of Man (Ed. Montagu, M. F. Ashley). Oxford University Press, New York, NY, USA: xiii + 376 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Penny, David (1983). Charles Darwin, gradualism, and punctuated equilibria. Systematic Zoology, 32(1), pp. 72–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perkins, D.H. (1964). The prehistoric fauna from Shandar, Iraq. Science, 144, pp. 1565–6, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratner, S.C. & Boice, R. (1975). Effects of domestication on behaviour. Pp. 3–19, illustr., in The Behaviour of Domestic Animals (3rd edn, Ed. Hafez, E.S.E.). Bailliere Tindall, London, England, UK: xii + 532 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Raup, David M. & Sepkoski, John J. (1982). Mass extinctions in the marine fossil record. Science, 215, pp. 1501–3, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stanley, Steven M. (1981). The New Evolutionary Timetable. Basic Books, New York, NY, USA: xvi + 222 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Takhtajan, Armen (1969). Flowering Plants: Origin and Dispersal (English edn). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: 310 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Takhtajan, Armen (1976). Neoteny and the origin of flowering plants. Pp. 207–19 in Origin and Early Evolution of Angiosperms (Ed. Beck, C.B.). Columbia University Press, New York, NY, USA: 341 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Westing, Arthur H. (1981). A world in balance. Environmental Conservation, 8(3), pp. 177–83, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Westing, Arthur H. (1982). Environmental quality: the effect of military preparations. Environment, 24(4), pp. 2–3, 39–40.Google Scholar
Zeuner, Frederick E. (1963). A History of Domesticated Animals. Harper & Row, New York, NY, USA: 560 pp., illustr.Google Scholar