A DECREASE IN EVOLUTIONARY PLASTICITY AS A RESULT OF PHYLOGENETIC IMMOBILIZATION AND ITS ECOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE
A. A. MAKHROV
A. N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of RAS, Moscow, Russia
Keywords: эволюция, пластичность, стазис, иммобилизация, рутинизация, реликт, живые ископаемые, вымирание, evolution, plasticity, stasis, immobilization, routinization, a relic, a live fossil, extinction
Abstract
The review considers the phenomenon of phylogenetic immobilization, which was first described by I. I. Schmalhausen and consists in a loss of evolutionary plasticity as a result of stabilizing selection and deleterious mutations with habitat-specific fitness effects. Examples of immobilization are described and their classification proposed. Stability of the environment and morphological conservatism are considered as factors in immobilization. The issues under discussion include the role of the immobilization concept in solving problems of the theory of evolution, the possibility of taking advantage of immobilization in breeding, and the problem of preserving taxa having a lower evolutionary plasticity.
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