Daisyworld is Darwinian: Constraints on Adaptation are Important for Planetary Self-Regulation
✍ Scribed by TIMOTHY M LENTON; JAMES E LOVELOCK
- Book ID
- 102612028
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 198 KB
- Volume
- 206
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-5193
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The Daisyworld model demonstrates that self-regulation of the global environment can emerge from competition amongst types of life altering their local environment in di!erent ways. Robertson & Robinson (1998. J. theor. Biol. 195, 129}134) presented what they describe as a &&Darwinian Daisyworld'' in which the ability of organisms to adapt their internal physiology in response to environmental change undermines their ability to regulate their environment. They assume that there are no bounds on the environmental conditions that organisms can adapt to and that equal growth rates can potentially be achieved under any conditions. If adaptation could respond su$ciently rapidly to changes in the environment, this would eliminate any need for the environment to be regulated in the "rst place, because all possible states of the environment would be equally tolerable to life. However, the thermodynamics, chemistry and structure of living organisms set bounds on the range of environmental conditions that can be adapted to. As these bounds are approached, environmental conditions limit growth rate, and adaptations necessary for survival can also cost energy. Here we take account of such constraints and "nd that environmental regulation is recovered in the Daisyworld model. Hence, we suggest that constraints are an important part of a self-regulating planetary system.