Abstract
Integrating concepts of maintenance and of origins is essential to explaining biological diversity. The unified theory of evolution attempts to find a common theme linking production rules inherent in biological systems, explaining the origin of biological order as a manifestation of the flow of energy and the flow of information on various spatial and temporal scales, with the recognition that natural selection is an evolutionarily relevant process. Biological systems persist in space and time by transfor ming energy from one state to another in a manner that generates structures which allows the system to continue to persist. Two classes of energetic transformations allow this; heat-generating transformations, resulting in a net loss of energy from the system, and conservative transformations, changing unusable energy into states that can be stored and used subsequently. All conservative transformations in biological systems are coupled with heat-generating transformations; hence, inherent biological production, or genealogical proesses, is positively entropic. There is a self-organizing phenomenology common to genealogical phenomena, which imparts an arrow of time to biological systems. Natural selection, which by itself is time-reversible, contributes to the organization of the self-organized genealogical trajectories. The interplay of genealogical (diversity-promoting) and selective (diversity-limiting) processes produces biological order to which the primary contribution is genealogical history. Dynamic changes occuring on times scales shorter than speciation rates are microevolutionary; those occuring on time scales longer than speciation rates are macroevolutionary. Macroevolutionary processes are neither redicible to, nor autonomous from, microevolutionary processes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Bowers, M. A. and J. H. Brown: 1982, ‘Body size and coexistence in desert rodents: Chance or community structure?’, Ecology 63, 391–400.
Brillouin, L.: 1962, Science and Information Theory, Academic Press, 2nd ed., New York.
Brooks, D. R.: 1985, ‘Historical ecology: A new approach to studying the evolution of ecological associations’, Ann. Missouri Bot. Garden 72, 660–680.
Brooks, D. R., P. H. LeBlond, and D. D. Cumming: 1984, ‘Information and entropy in a simple evolution model’, J. Theor. Biol. 109, 77–93.
Brooks, D. R., D. D. Cumming, and P. H. LeBlond: 1988, ‘Dollo's Law and the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Analogy or extension?’, in Entropy. Information and Evolution: New Perspectives on Physical and Biological Evolution. ed. B. Weber, D. J. Depew and J. D. Smith, MIT Press, Cambridge, 189–224.
Brooks, D. R. and R. T. O'Grady: 1986, ‘Non-equilibrium thermodynamics and different axioms of evolution’, Acta Biotheor. 35, 77–106.
Brooks, D. R. and E. O. Wiley: 1988, Evolution as Entropy: Toward a Unified Theory of Biology. Univ. Chicago Press. 2nd ed., Chicago.
Buss, L.: 1987, The Evolution of Individuality. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton.
Chaitin, G. J.: 1975, ‘A theory of program size formally equivalent to information theory’, J. ACM 22, 329–340.
Charlesworth, B., R. Lande, and M. Slatkin: 1982, ‘A neo-Darwinian commentary on macroevolution’, Evolution 36, 474–498.
Collier, J.: 1986, ‘Entropy in evolution’, Biol. Philos. 1, 5–24.
Collier, J.: 1988, ‘Supervenience and reduction in biological hierarchies’, Can. J. Philos. suppl. vol. 14, 209–234.
Collier, J. D.: 1989, ‘Intrinsic information’, in Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science, ed. P. P. Hanson, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver.
Depew, D. J. and B. Weber: 1988, ‘Consequences of nonequilibrium thermodynamics for the Darwinian tradition’, in Entropy, Information and Evolution: New Perspectives on Physical and Biological Evolution, eds. B. Weber, and J. D. Smith, MIT Press, Cambridge, 317–354.
Diamond, J.: 1986, ‘Evolution of ecological segregation in the New Guinea montane avifauna’, in Community Ecology, eds. J. Diamond and T. J. Case, Harper and Row, New York, 98–125.
Eldredge, N.: 1985, Unfinished Synthesis, Columbia Univ. Press, New York.
Eldredge, N.: 1986, ‘Information, economics and evolution’, Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 17, 351–369.
Eldredge, N. and S. N. Salth: 1984, ‘Hierarchy and evolution’, in Oxford Surveys in Evolutionary Biology, eds. R. Dawkins and M. Ridley. 1, 182–206.
Emig, C. C.: 1985, ‘Relations entre l'espece structure dissipatrice biologique, et l'ecosysteme, structure dissipatrice ecologique. Contribution a la theory de l'evolution des systemes non-en equilibre’, C. R. Acad, Sci. Paris 300, 323–326.
Endler, J. A.: 1986, Natural Selection in the Wild. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ.
Fink, W. L.: 1982, ‘The conceptual relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny’, Paleobiology 8, 254–264.
Frautschi, S.: 1982, ‘Entropy in an expanding universe’, Science 217, 593–599.
Frautschi, S.: 1988, ‘Entropy in an expanding universe’, in Entropy, Information and Evolution: New Perspective on Physical and Biological Evolution, eds. B. Weber, D. J. Depew and J. D. Smith, MIT Press, Cambridge, 11–22.
Futuyma, D. J.: 1988, ‘Sturm und Drang and the Evolutionary Synthesis’, Evolution 42, 217–226.
Gatlin, L. L.: 1972, Information Theory and the Living System, Columbia Univ. Press, New York.
Goodwin, B. C.: 1982, ‘Development and evolution’, J. Theor. Biol. 97, 43–55.
Goodwin, B. C.: 1985, ‘Changing from an evolutionary to a generative paradigm in biology’, in Evolutionary Theory: Paths into the Future, ed. J. W. Pollard, John Wiley & Sons, London, 99–120.
Gould, S. J.: 1980, ‘Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?’, Paleobiology 6, 119–120.
Graham, R. W.: 1986, ‘Response of mammalian communities to environmental changes during the late Quaternery’, in Community Ecology, eds. J. Diamond and T. J. Case, Harper and Row, New York, 300–313.
Hailman, J. P.: 1977, Optical Signals: Animal Communication and Light, Univ. Indiana Press, Bloomington.
Hennig, W.: 1966, Phylogenetic Systematics. Univ. Illinois Press, Urbana.
Kolmogorov, A. N.: 1968, ‘Logical basis for information theory and probability theory’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 14, 662–664.
Landsberg, P. T.: 1984a, ‘Is equilibrium always an entropy maximum?’, J. Stat. Physics 35, 159–169.
Landsberg, P. T.: 1984b, ‘Can entropy and “order” increase together?”, Physics Letters 102A, 171–173.
Lauder, G. V.: 1981, ‘Form and function: Structural analysis in evolutionary biolog’, Paleobiology 7, 430–442.
Lauder, G. V.: 1982, ‘Historical biology and the problem of design’, J. Theor. Biol. 97, 57–68.
Layzer, D.: 1975, ‘The arrow of time’, Sci. Amer. 233, 56–69.
Levins, R.: 1975, ‘Evolution of communities near equilibrium’, in Ecology and Evolution of Communities, ed. M. L. Cody and J. M. Diamond, Belknap Press, Cambridge, Mass, 16–50.
Lima-de-Faria. A.: 1983, Molecular Order and Organization of the Chromosome, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Lindeman, R. L.: 1942, ‘The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology’, Ecology 23, 399–418.
Lotka, A. J.: 1913, ‘Evolution from the standpoint of physics, the principle of the persistence of stable forms’, Sci. Amer. Suppl. 75, 345–346, 354, 379.
Lotka, A. J.: 1925, Elements of Physical Biology, Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore.
Luria, S. E., S. J. Gould, and S. Singer: 1981, A View of Life, Benjamin Cummings, Menlo Park.
MacArthur, R. H.: 1958, ‘Population ecology of some warblers of northeastern coniferous forests’, Ecology 39, 599–619.
MacArthur, R. H.: 1972, Geographical Ecology, Harper and Row, New York.
Maurer, B. A.: 1985, ‘On the ecological and evolutionary roles of competition’, Oikos 45, 300–302.
Maurer, B. A.: 1987, ‘Scaling of biological community structure: A systems approach to community complexity’, J. Theor. Biol. 127, 97–110.
Maurer, B. A. and D. R. Brooks.: (submitted), ‘Scaling of entropy production in biological systems’, Biosystems.
Prigogine, I.: 1967, Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes. Wiley-Intersci. 3rd ed., New York.
Prigogine, I.: 1980, From Being to Becomming. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.
Prigogine, I. and J. W. Wiame: 1946, ‘Biologie et thermodynamique des phenomenes irreversibles’, Experientia 2, 451–453.
Ricklefs, R. E.: 1987, ‘Community diversity: Relative roles of local and regional processes’, Science 235 167–171.
Root, R. B.: 1967, ‘The niche exploitation pattern of the blue-grey gnatcatcher’, Ecological Monogr. 37, 317–350.
Roughgarden, J., S. D. Gaines, and S. W. Pacala: 1988, ‘Supply side ecology: The role of physical transport processes’, in Organization of Communities Past and Present, eds., J. H. R. Gee and P. S. Giller, Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, 491–518.
Salthe, S. N.: 1985, Evolving Hierarchical Systems: Their Structure and Representation. Columbia Univ. Press, New York.
Saunders, P. T. and M.-W. Ho: 1985, ‘The complexity of organisms’, in Evolutionary Theory: Paths into the Future, ed. J. W. Pollard, John Wiley & Sons, London, 121–139.
Schoener, T. W.: 1974, ‘Resource partitioning in ecological communities’, Science 185, 27–39.
Schoener, T. W.: 1986, ‘Overview: Kinds of communities — ecology becomes pluralistic’, in, Community Ecology, eds. J. Diamond and T. J. Case, Harper and Row, New York, 467–479.
Shannon, C. E., and W. Weaver: 1949, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Slatkin, M.: 1980, ‘Ecological character displacement’, Ecology 61, 163–177.
Smith, J. D. H.: 1988, ‘A class of mathematical models for evolution and Hierarchical Information Theory’, Inst. Math. Appl. Preprint Series 396, 1–13.
Sober, E.: 1984, The Nature of Selection, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Stebbins, G. L. and F. C. Ayala: 1981, ‘Is a new evolutionary synthesis necessary’, Science 213, 967–971.
Waddington, C. H.: 1966, ‘Fields and gradients’, in Major Problems in Developmental Biology, ed. M. Locke, Academic Press, London, 105–124.
Wake, D. B. and A. Larson: 1987, ‘Multidemensional analysis of an evolving lineage’, Science 238, 42–48.
Weber, B., D. J. Depew, and J. D. Smith, eds.: 1988, Entropy, Information and Evolution: New Perspectives on Physical and Biological Evolution, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Weber, B. H., D. J. Depew, C. Dyke, S. N. Salthe, E. D. Schneider, R. E. Ulanowicz, and J. S. Wicken: 1989, ‘Evolution in thermodynamic perspective: An ecological approach’, Biol. Philo.: in volume.
Wicken, J. S.: 1987a, Evolution, Thermodynamics and Information: Extending the Darwinian Paradigm, Oxford Univ. Press, New York.
Wicken, J.: 1987b, ‘Entropy and information: Suggestions for common language’, Phil. Sci. 54, 176–193.
Wiley, E. O.: 1981, Phylogenetics: The Theory and Practice of Phylogenetic Systematics, Wiley-Intersci, New York.
Wiley, E. O.: 1988, ‘Vicariance biogeography’, Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 19, 513–542.
Zotin, A. I. and R. S. Zotina: 1978, ‘Experimental basis for qualitative phenomenological theory of development’, in Thermodynamics of Biological Processes, ed. I. Lamprecht and A. I. Zotin, deGruyter, Berlin, 61–84.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Authorship alphabetical
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brooks, D.R., Collier, J., Maurer, B.A. et al. Entropy and information in evolving biological systems. Biol Philos 4, 407–432 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00162588
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00162588