There’s a rather perplexing paper out in PNAS which I stumbled upon today, An evolutionary process that assembles phenotypes through space rather than through time. Perplexing because I wonder if it is almost so obvious as to be boring, in the trivial but true category, or if it points to a rather deep dimensions of evolutionary process which we’ve ignored. The authors themselves offer up that they’re attempting to reintroduce a concept which has long been in the literature, and, they admit that there isn’t much empirical data to test the importance of the dynamic which they’re outlining. For example, after discussing the consequences which might be entailed by the widespread significance of the phenomenon which they’re describe, they note, “We do not have enough data to test this proposition.”
Here’s their abstract:
In classical evolutionary theory, traits evolve because they facilitate organismal survival and/or reproduction. We discuss a different type of evolutionary mechanism that relies upon differential dispersal. Traits that enhance rates of dispersal inevitably accumulate at expanding range edges, and assortative mating between fast-dispersing individuals at the invasion front results in an evolutionary increase in dispersal rates in successive generations. This cumulative process (which we dub “spatial sorting”) generates …