User:Wshoenberger/sandbox

Post peer review edit
The article for niche construction is already created for Wikipedia. The purpose of my contributions are to expand some of the already existing sections. I will add some additional information to the introduction section discussing the definition, examples of the types of niche construction, and the consequences for the organisms that engage in niche constructions.

Addition to the definition section: For an organism to be considered undergoing niche construction that organism must satisfy the following three criteria: 1) An organism must significantly modify environmental conditions, 2) These modifications must influence selection pressures on a recipient organism, & 3) There must be an evolutionary response in at least one recipient population caused by the environmental modification[1,2].

Addition to examples section:

I will add the two additional categories of niche construction. Organisms can achieve environmental modification in a number of ways. Generally, there are considered to be two main categories of niche construction: are inceptive and counteractive construction[1]. When an organism is believed to be directly altering its environment then that organism is considered to modifying its environment via inceptive niche construction[1]. When an organism is observed instead attempting to disrupt (e.g. stop or encourage) an already fluctuating variable in the environment (e.g. temperature) then that organism is considered to be using counteractive niche construction. An example of inceptive niche construction is when termites create their nest mounds and permanently alter the environment for successive generations[3]. An example of counteractive niche construction is when bees regulate the temperature of their nests. They can alter this temperature by using muscular activity to heat the nests when their cold and using water droplets to cool the nests down in the heat[3]. In some cases, organisms can actually engage in both types of niche construction at different points in their development or over successive generations. For the termite example, the initial formation of the termite mounds is considered inceptive construction while the successive generations that are reared in the temperature controlled environment of the mound is considered to be engaging in counteractive niche construction[3].

New section consequences for organisms: The theory of niche construction can be used to help explain how the modifications made by an individual can actually affect their evolutionary trajectories. This can also mean that the evolution of other species using the same altered niche will also be affected. This would include organisms that associate directly with those performing niche construction (i.e. mutualisms)[2-5]. Studies suggest that the organisms that undergo niche construction can actually override external sources of selection to create new evolutionary pathways, which lead to unexpected outcomes[4]. These outcomes can include the fixation of normally harmful alleles, the removal of stable polymorphisms and the continuation of unstable ones. Niche construction that only weakly affects resource dynamics can significantly alter both ecological and evolutionary patterns [4]. This is at least partly due to how traits whose fitness depends on sources that can be changed co-evolve with traits that can actually change those sources of selection. For instance, populations evolving in response to features of the environment modified by their ancestors can exhibit any one of several effects: continuing to adapt and evolve towards the same direction, have no noticeable evolutionary response to selection for a number of generations or have the opposite and sudden responses to selection[4-7].

1) J. Odling-Smee, D. Erwin, E. Palkovacs, M. Feldman, K. Laland. 2013. The Quarterly Review of Biology. “Niche construction theory: a practical guide for ecologists”. Vol 88.

2) G. Kylafis & M. Loreau. 2008. Ecology Letters. “Ecological and evolutionary consequences of niche construction for its agent”. Vol 11, pp 1072-1081

3) C. Buser, R. Newcomb, A. Gaskett & M. Goddard. 2014. Ecology Letters. “Niche construction initiates the evolution of mutualistic interactions”.

4) D. Erwin. 2008. Cell Press. “Macroevolution of ecosystem engineering, niche construction and diversity”.

5) R. Day, K. Laland, J Odling-Smee. 2003. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. “Rethinking Adaptation: the niche construction perspective”. Vol 46, pp 80-95

6) T. Scott-Phillips, K. Laland, D Shuker, T. Dickins & S. West. 2013. The Society for the Study of Evolution. “The Niche Construction Perspective: A Critical Appraisal”. Vol 68, pp 1231-1243

7) G. Kylafis & M. Loreau. 2008. Ecology Letters. “Ecological and evolutionary consequences of niche construction for its agent”. Vol 11, pp 1072-1081.

Lead Section
Niche construction is an evolutionary concept in which an organism can significantly modify its environment. Although many organisms can alter their surroundings to an extent, for this action to be considered niche construction is must follow 3 guidelines: That organism must significantly modify environmental conditions, these modifications must influence selection pressures on a recipient organism, and there must be an evolutionary response in at least one recipient population caused by the environmental modification [1].

Organisms can go about modifying their environment in a number of ways. The two main categories of niche construction are inceptive and counteractive construction. When an organism directly alters an environment then that organism is considered to be engaging in inceptive niche construction. When an organism instead attempts to disrupt an already fluctuating variable in the environment (e.g. temperature) then that organism is considered to be using counteractive niche construction [2].

The theory of niche construction can be used to help explain how the modifications made by an individual can actually affect their evolutionary trajectories. This can also mean that the evolution of other species using the same altered niche will also be affected [3].

1) J. Odling-Smee, D. Erwin, E. Palkovacs, M. Feldman, K. Laland. 2013. The Quarterly Review of Biology. “Niche construction theory: a practical guide for ecologists”. Vol 88.

2) G. Kylafis & M. Loreau. 2008. Ecology Letters. “Ecological and evolutionary consequences of niche construction for its agent”. Vol 11, pp 1072-1081

3) C. Buser, R. Newcomb, A. Gaskett & M. Goddard. 2014. Ecology Letters. “Niche construction initiates the evolution of mutualistic interactions”.

4) D. Erwin. 2008. Cell Press. “Macroevolution of ecosystem engineering, niche construction and diversity”.

5) R. Day, K. Laland, J Odling-Smee. 2003. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. “Rethinking Adaptation: the niche construction perspective”. Vol 46, pp 80-95

6) T. Scott-Phillips, K. Laland, D Shuker, T. Dickins & S. West. 2013. The Society for the Study of Evolution. “The Niche Construction Perspective: A Critical Appraisal”. Vol 68, pp 1231-1243

7) G. Kylafis & M. Loreau. 2008. Ecology Letters. “Ecological and evolutionary consequences of niche construction for its agent”. Vol 11, pp 1072-1081.

Outline
1. Talk about the active role of mutualism as it applies to niche construction -Clutton-Brock, T. 2009. Cooperation between non-kin in animal societies. Nature 462: 51-57. Fischer, M. K., Hoffmann, K. H., & Völkl, W. 2001. Competition for mutualists in an ant–homopteran interaction mediated by hierarchies of ant attendance. Oikos 92:531-541. -This will require explanation of what mutualism is and how it applies to niche construction -Also the concept of animals purposely impacting their environment in lieu of it being a byproduct will also be discussed in this section.

-The next part will be about evidence supporting this idea -Ants and hempiterans will be a major feature of this section as there is alot of information on them and they are readily recognizable. Hammerstein, P., & Noë, R. 2016. Biological trade and markets. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 371(1687), 20150101. Rosumek, F. B., Silveira, F. A., Neves, F. D. S., Barbosa, N. P. D. U., Diniz, L., Oki, Y., ... & Cornelissen, T. 2009. Ants on plants: a meta-analysis of the role of ants as plant biotic defenses. Oecologia, 160(3), 537-549. Styrsky, J. D., & Eubanks, M. D. 2007. Ecological consequences of interactions between ants and honeydew-producing insects. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 274:151-164. J. Bronstein. 2009. Journal of Ecology. “The evolution of facilitation and mutualism”. Vol 97, pp 1160-1170 -Next I'll talk about the evidence against this topic -this section will include information about how niche construction is really a separate process from mutualism and will blend back into the existing article. D. Erwin. 2008. Cell Press. “Macroevolution of ecosystem engineering, niche construction and diversity”.

Definition update
1)An organism must significantly modify environmental conditions

2)These modifications must influence selection pressures on a recipient organism

3)There must be an evolutionary response in at least one recipient population caused by the environmental modification.

Examples update:
Inceptive niche construction: This type of niche construction specifically refers to situations in which organisms start the perceived change in an environment, either through the active alteration of their surroundings or through the opportunistic dispersal to a different environment.

Counteractive niche construction: In contrast to inceptive niche construction, if the variable the organism is altering is already fluctuating organisms may oppose or cancel out that change. An example of counteractive niche construction is when bees regulate the temperature of their nests. They can alter this temperature by using muscular activity to heat the nests when their cold and using water droplets to cool the nests down in the heat.

Consequences for organisms updates:
The theory of niche construction can be used to help explain how the modifications made by an individual can actually affect their evolutionary trajectories. This can also mean that the evolution of other species using the same altered niche will also be affected. This would include organisms that associate directly with those performing niche construction (i.e. mutualisms). Studies suggest that the organisms that perform niche construction can actually override external sources of selection to create new evolutionary pathways, which lead to unexpected outcomes. These outcomes can include the fixation of normally harmful alleles, the removal of stable polymorphisms and the continuation of unstable ones. Niche construction that only weakly affects resource dynamics can significantly alter both ecological and evolutionary patterns. This is at least partly due to how traits whose fitness depends on sources that can be changed co-evolve with traits that can actually change those sources of selection. For instance, populations evolving in response to features of the environment modified by their ancestors can exhibit any one of several effects: continuing to adapt and evolve towards the same direction, have no noticeable evolutionary response to selection for a number of generations or have the opposite and sudden responses to selection.

from Kasey: looks like you are doing a nice job of incorporating concepts from class in here. Make sure to add some more information about how what you are describing can happen so a naive reader can understand, and also add citations! I will have more comments after the article lead summary is written on the 14th! Evol&#38;Glass (talk)

Current status update
The process of niche construction can also be integral to the field of ecology. Niche construction has been shown to support ecosystem engineering and eco-evolutionary feedbacks and even regulates the flow of energy and nutrients throughout the entire ecosystem.

Will's Plan for Niche Construction
-Talk about active role of niche construction in lieu of passive role -Talk about supporting evidence for that hypothesis -Talk about evidence against that hypothesis Possible references: Clutton-Brock, T. 2009. Cooperation between non-kin in animal societies. Nature 462: 51-57. Fischer, M. K., Hoffmann, K. H., & Völkl, W. 2001. Competition for mutualists in an ant–homopteran interaction mediated by hierarchies of ant attendance. Oikos 92:531-541. Hammerstein, P., & Noë, R. 2016. Biological trade and markets. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 371(1687), 20150101. Noë, R. 2006. Cooperation experiments: coordination through communication versus acting apart together. Animal Behaviour, 71(1), 1-18. Noë, R., & Hammerstein, P. 1994. Biological markets: supply and demand determine the effect of partner choice in cooperation, mutualism and mating. Behavioral ecology and sociobiology, 35(1), 1-11. Rosumek, F. B., Silveira, F. A., Neves, F. D. S., Barbosa, N. P. D. U., Diniz, L., Oki, Y., ... & Cornelissen, T. 2009. Ants on plants: a meta-analysis of the role of ants as plant biotic defenses. Oecologia, 160(3), 537-549. Stanton, M. L. 2003. Interacting guilds: moving beyond the pairwise perspective on mutualisms. The American Naturalist, 162(S4), S10-S23. Styrsky, J. D., & Eubanks, M. D. 2007. Ecological consequences of interactions between ants and honeydew-producing insects. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 274:151-164.

C. Buser, R. Newcomb, A. Gaskett & M. Goddard. 2014. Ecology Letters. “Niche construction initiates the evolution of mutualistic interactions”.

J. Bronstein. 2009. Journal of Ecology. “The evolution of facilitation and mutualism”. Vol 97, pp 1160-1170.

R. Schmitt, S. Holbrook. 2003. Ecology Letters. “Mutualism can mediate competition and promote coexistence”. Vol 6, pp 898-902.

D. Erwin. 2008. Cell Press. “Macroevolution of ecosystem engineering, niche construction and diversity”.

R. Day, K. Laland, J Odling-Smee. 2003. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. “Rethinking Adaptation: the niche construction perspective”. Vol 46, pp 80-95.

D. Gordon. 2011. Behavioral Ecology. “The fusion of behavioral ecology and ecology”.

T. Scott-Phillips, K. Laland, D Shuker, T. Dickins & S. West. 2013. The Society for the Study of Evolution. “The Niche Construction Perspective: A Critical Appraisal”. Vol 68, pp 1231-1243.

G. Kylafis & M. Loreau. 2011. Ecology Letters. “Niche construction in the light of niche theory”. Vol 14, pp 82-90.

G. Kylafis & M. Loreau. 2008. Ecology Letters. “Ecological and evolutionary consequences of niche construction for its agent”. Vol 11, pp 1072-1081. J. Odling-Smee, D. Erwin, E. Palkovacs, M. Feldman, K. Laland. 2013. The Quarterly Review of Biology. “Niche construction theory: a practical guide for ecologists”. Vol 88.

K. Laland & K. Sterelny. 2006. International Journal of Organic Evolution. “Perspective: Seven Reasons (Not) to Neglect Niche Construction”. Vol 60, pp 1751-1762.

== JUSTIN GARRETT'S FEEDBACK: == I would perhaps add to the introduction to possibly include some more background on behavioral plasticity. You have a good definition, but maybe add a paragraph below it on maybe when the field really gained traction or some more in details on what it is exactly. I felt like it was just a quick definition and then you jumped into different types with the first heading??

Also, perhaps you could enter an Examples section with a brief paragraph on some of the most obvious examples of behavioral plasticity???

J.Garrett Feedback 2.0
Looks great overall. I would remember to add examples under that section, but I like the concise feel to the page.

Sterling's Feedback

 * Nice, concise definition. Maybe compare/contrast to the difference from more general phenotypic plasticity (and perhaps link to this wikipedia page).
 * Also, even though its kind of simple, maybe provide a brief definition of "behavioral" so readers can differentiate from physiological or other phenotypic plasticity.
 * Maybe provide a sentence or two with a synopsis of your sections, which, from a glance over them, look really interesting.

Sterling's Feedback #2
I sent you an email Will. Looks great! Can you explain activational vs. contextual plasticity a little more?