PERSPECTIVE: SEVEN REASONS (NOT) TO NEGLECT NICHE CONSTRUCTION

@article{Laland2006PERSPECTIVESR,
  title={PERSPECTIVE: SEVEN REASONS (NOT) TO NEGLECT NICHE CONSTRUCTION},
  author={Kevin N. Laland and Kim Sterelny},
  journal={Evolution},
  year={2006},
  volume={60}
}
Abstract –The niche‐construction perspective within evolutionary biology places emphasis on the changes that organisms bring about in their selective environments. Advocates of this viewpoint argue that there is both accuracy and utility in treating niche construction as an evolutionary process in its own right, rather than merely as a product of evolution. Here we discuss and assess seven putative weaknesses of the niche‐construction perspective. Niche construction has been neglected or… Expand
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    THE NICHE CONSTRUCTION PERSPECTIVE: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL*
    TLDR
    Whether niche construction is an evolutionary process, whether NCT obscures or clarifies how natural selection leads to organismal adaptation, and whether niche construction and natural selection are of equivalent explanatory importance are discussed. Expand
    Niche construction in evolutionary theory: the construction of an academic niche?
    TLDR
    It is suggested that the manner in which niche construction theory is sought to be pushed in the literature is better viewed as an exercise in academic niche construction whereby, through incessant repetition of largely untenable claims, and the deployment of rhetorically appealing but logically dubious analogies, a receptive climate for a certain sub-discipline is seeking to be manufactured within the scientific community. Expand
    Niche construction in evolutionary theory: the construction of an academic niche?
    TLDR
    It is suggested that the manner in which niche construction theory is pushed in the literature looks more like an exercise in academic niche construction whereby, through incessant repetition of largely untenable claims, and the deployment of rhetorically appealing but logically dubious analogies, a receptive climate for a certain sub-discipline is sought to be manufactured within the scientific community. Expand
    Ecosystem engineering, experiment, and evolution
    TLDR
    This literature demonstrates that while ecosystem engineering studies may not require us to embrace a new evolutionary process, as niche construction advocates have claimed, they do teach us that the myriad abiotic factors concealed by the abstract term ‘environment’ are often controlled in large part by organisms. Expand
    Three Kinds of Constructionism: The Role of Metaphor in the Debate over Niche Constructionism
    TLDR
    This work proposes a three-tier categorization of constructionism (literal, analogical, and figurative) based on the analysis of the metaphor of construction itself and shows metaphors are not a mere rhetorical device but represent an instrument through which theories evolve and introduce new elements. Expand
    Niche construction theory as an explanatory framework for human phenomena
    TLDR
    It is argued that NCT’s failure to account for differing developments in very similar situations, and to facilitate evaluation and discrimination between divergent and contradictory causal accounts of particular phenomena, render NCT unsuitable to serve as an explanatory framework for human phenomena. Expand
    Under niche construction: an operational bridge between ecology, evolution, and ecosystem science
    TLDR
    An operational framework to evaluate comparative and experimental evidence of the evolutionary consequences of niche construction is proposed, and how such research can improve the authors' understanding of ecological and evolutionary dynamics in ecosystems is suggested. Expand
    Defining the niche for niche construction: evolutionary and ecological niches
    Niche construction theory (NCT) aims to transform and unite evolutionary biology and ecology. Much of the debate about NCT has focused on construction. Less attention has been accorded to the niche:… Expand
    Three Kinds of Niche Construction
    Niche construction theory concerns how organisms can change selection pressures by altering the feature–factor relationship between themselves and their environment. These alterations are standardly… Expand
    Niche construction, adaptive preferences, and the differences between fitness and utility
    TLDR
    The analysis of two seemingly disparate but in fact structurally related phenomena, ‘niche construction’ and ‘adaptive preferences’, is used to establish when connecting fitness and utility is and is not possible. Expand
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