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5 - Analysing the role of adaptive evolution in theoretical morphospaces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2010

George R. McGhee
George R. McGhee
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
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Summary

In studying the functional significance of the coiled shell, it is important to be able to analyze the types that do not occur in nature as well as those represented by actual species. Both digital and analog computers are useful in constructing accurate pictures of the types that do not occur.

Raup and Michelson (1965, p. 1294)

Functional analysis in theoretical morphospace

We saw in the last chapter that the five steps of a theoretical morphospace analysis (Fig. 4.3) can be summarized in three conceptual phases: the creation of a morphospace, the exploration of a morphospace, and the analysis of evolution within a morphospace. The analysis of evolution within a morphospace involves the functional analysis of the spectrum of both existent and nonexistent form within the morphospace, a spectrum that has been revealed in the first two phases of the analysis. The goal of functional analyses is to determine whether the observed distribution of form within the morphospace is indeed of adaptive significance, and it is in this phase of the analysis that the concepts of the adaptive landscape and the theoretical morphospace begin to converge.

In Chapter 4 we examined the process involved in creating a theoretical morphospace of hypothetical ammonoid morphologies, and the plotting of species of actual ammonoids within that morphospace, from the early work of Dave Raup, the founder of theoretical morphology.

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The Geometry of Evolution
Adaptive Landscapes and Theoretical Morphospaces
 , pp. 71 - 89
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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