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SUMMARY:Non-adaptive selection: explaining macroscopic laws in ecology and
  evolution
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20140707
DTSTAMP:20260406T111814Z
UID:99689c51ef87ecc4561d24affc5458078e7e173f548bcac08c127e81
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Lev Ginzburg\nRoger Arditi\nLouis-Félix Bersier\nMuch of biol
 ogical thinking starts with the view that\, given enough time\, anything c
 an evolve. We think that it is more fruitful to delineate first the forbid
 den states of ecology and evolution—“forbidden” not because they can
 not occur\, but because they cannot last. Our hypothesis is that much of t
 he structure and stability of biodiversity seen at the macro level is the 
 result of an ongoing process of selective elimination of unstable configur
 ations. Selective elimination processes are powerful non-adaptive evolutio
 nary forces\, and they are not specific to biological systems. The evoluti
 on of the planetary system or\, for example\, of the rings of Saturn has b
 een driven by the elimination of many physical bodies. The elimination pro
 cesses in biology are different only in that the forces of evolution conti
 nually generate biological systems that approach or transgress eliminative
  boundaries\, and thus elimination is a never-ending process. Various obse
 rved macroscopic ecological laws can be explained by the mathematical cond
 itions of stability in systems of interacting species. This is a fruitful 
 approach that was initiated by Robert May in the 1970s and has been attrac
 ting more attention in the last decade.
LOCATION:BI A0 448 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==BI%20A0%20448
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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