Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T14:38:55.466Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Exaptation—a Missing Term in the Science of Form

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Stephen Jay Gould  and
Elisabeth S. Vrba
Stephen Jay Gould
Affiliation:
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Elisabeth S. Vrba
Affiliation:
Transvaal Museum, Paul Kruger Street, P.O. Box 413, Pretoria, South Africa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Adaptation has been defined and recognized by two different criteria: historical genesis (features built by natural selection for their present role) and current utility (features now enhancing fitness no matter how they arose). Biologists have often failed to recognize the potential confusion between these different definitions because we have tended to view natural selection as so dominant among evolutionary mechanisms that historical process and current product become one. Yet if many features of organisms are non-adapted, but available for useful cooptation in descendants, then an important concept has no name in our lexicon (and unnamed ideas generally remain unconsidered): features that now enhance fitness but were not built by natural selection for their current role. We propose that such features be called exaptations and that adaptation be restricted, as Darwin suggested, to features built by selection for their current role. We present several examples of exaptation, indicating where a failure to conceptualize such an idea limited the range of hypotheses previously available. We explore several consequences of exaptation and propose a terminological solution to the problem of preadaptation.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Winter 1982 , pp. 4 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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

Literature Cited

Abercrombie, M., Hickman, C. H., and Johnson, M. L. 1951. A Dictionary of Biology. 5 th edition, 1966. Hunt Bernard and Co. Ltd., Aylesbury, Great Britain.Google Scholar
Arnold, A. J. and Fristrup, K. 1982. The hierarchical basis for a unified theory of evolution. Paleobiology, in press.Google Scholar
Bakker, R. T. 1975. Dinosaur renaissance. Sci. Am. 232(4):55–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, W. 1967. The use of adaptive characters in avian classification. Proc. XIV Int. Ornith. Cong., Pp. 66–74.Google Scholar
Bock, W. 1979. A synthetic explanation of macroevolutionary change—a reductionistic approach. Bull. Carnegie Mus. Nat. Hist. No. 13:20–69.Google Scholar
Bock, W. J. 1980. The definition and recognition of biological adaptation. Am. Zool. 20:217–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock., W. J. and von Wahlert, G. 1965. Adaptation and the form-function complex. Evolution. 10:269–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Britten, R. J. and Davidson, E. H. 1971. Repetitive and non-repetitive DNA sequences and a speculation on the origins of evolutionary novelty. Q. Rev. Biol. 46:111–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, S. N. 1976. Transposable genetic elements and plasmid evolution. Nature. 263:731–738.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species. J. Murray: London.Google Scholar
Dickerson, R. E. and Geis, I. 1969. The Structure and Action of Proteins. Harper and Row; New York.Google Scholar
Doolittle, W. F. and Sapienza, C. 1980. Selfish genes, the phenotype paradigm, and genome evolution. Nature. 254:601–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duthie, R. B. and Ferguson, A. B. 1973. Mercer's Orthopaedic Surgery. 7thedition. Edward Arnold; London.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A. 1958. Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. (2nd revised edition). Dover; New York.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1965. Madness and Civilization. Random House; New York.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1970. The Order of Things. Random House; New York.Google Scholar
Frazzetta, T. H. 1975. Complex Adaptations in Evolving Populations. 267 pp. Sinauer Associates; Sunderland, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. 1981. What happens to bodies if genes act for themselves? Nat. Hist. November.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. and Lewontin, R. C. 1979. The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme. Pp. 147–164. In: Maynard Smith, J. and Holliday, R., eds. The Evolution of Adaptation by Natural Selection. R. Soc. London.Google Scholar
Halstead, L. B. 1969. The Pattern of Vertebrate Evolution. Oliver and Boyd; Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Harrison Matthews, L. 1939. Reproduction in the spotted hyena Crocuta crocuta (Erxleben). Phil. Trans. R. Soc. (B) 230:1–78.Google Scholar
Kleckner, N. 1977. Translocatable elements in procaryotes. Cell. 11:11–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kruuk, H. 1972. The Spotted Hyena, a Study of Predation and Social Behavior. Univ. Chicago Press; Chicago, Illinois.Google Scholar
Kurtén, B. 1980. Dance of the Tiger. Pantheon; New York.Google Scholar
Lewin, B. 1975. Units of transcription and translation. Cell. 4:77–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLachlan, G. R. and Liversidge, R. 1978. Roberts' Birds of South Africa. 4th edition (first publ. in 1940). John Voelcker Bird Book Fund; Cape Town.Google Scholar
Mivart, St. G. 1871. On the Genesis of Species. MacMillan; London.Google Scholar
Ohno, S. 1970. Evolution by Gene Duplication. 160 pp. Springer; New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orgel, L. E. and Crick, F. H. C. 1980. Selfish DNA: the ultimate parasite. Nature. 284:604–607.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oster, G. 1980. Mechanics, morphogenesis and evolution. Address to Conference on Macroevolution, October 1980, Chicago.Google Scholar
Ostrom, J. H. 1974. Archaeopteryx and the origin of flight. Q. Rev. Biol. 49:27–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, J. H. 1979. Bird flight: how did it begin? Am. Sci. 67:46–56.Google ScholarPubMed
Paterson, H. E. H. 1982. Species as a consequence of sex, in press. Am. Sci.Google Scholar
Pautard, F. G. E. 1961. Calcium, phosphorus, and the origin of backbones. New Sci. 12:364–366.Google Scholar
Pautard, F. G. E. 1962. The molecular-biologic background to the evolution of bone. Clin. Orthopaed. 24:230–244.Google Scholar
Porter, R. MS. Problems in the treatment of ‘madness’ in English science, medicine and literature in the eighteenth century.Google Scholar
Racey, P. A. and Skinner, J. C. 1979. Endocrine aspects of sexual mimicry in spotted hyenas Crocuta crocuta. J. Zool. London. 187:315–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, D. M. and Gould, S. J. 1974. Stochastic simulation and evolution of morphology—towards a nomothetic paleontology. Syst. Zool. 23:305–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romer, A. S. 1963. The ‘ancient history’ of bone. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 109:168–176.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott, J. D. and Symons, N. B. B. 1977. Introduction to Dental Anatomy. Churchill Livingstone; London.Google Scholar
Seilacher, A. 1970. Arbeitskonzept zur Konstruktionsmorphologie. Lethaia. 3:393–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seilacher, A. 1972. Divariate patterns in pelecypod shells. Lethaia. 5:325–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vrba, E. S. 1980. Evolution, species and fossils: how does life evolve? S. Afr. J. Sci. 76:61–84.Google Scholar
Williams, G. C. 1966. Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton University Press; Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar