Mathematical evolutionary theory suggests that niche construction is of considerable ecological and evolutionary importance. It has been found to affect evolutionary equilibria, rates, and dynamics, drive coevolution, facilitate cooperation, and generate range expansion.
There is now an extensive body of formal theory that explores the evolution of niche construction and its ramifications for evolutionary biology and ecology. Mathematical analyses suggest that niche construction is of considerable ecological and evolutionary importance.
For instance, niche construction can:
(i) fix genes or phenotypes that would, under standard evolutionary theory, be deleterious, create or eliminate equilibria, and affect evolutionary rates (Laland et al. 1999; Silver & Di Paolo 2006; Creanza & Feldman 2014, Tanaka et al. 2020),
(ii) cause evolutionary time lags, generate momentum, inertia, autocatalytic effects, catastrophic responses to selection, and cyclical dynamics (Laland et al. 1999; Creanza & Feldman 2014, Tanaka et al. 2020);
(iii) drive niche-constructing traits to fixation by creating statistical associations with recipient traits (Silver & Di-Paolo 2006);
(iv) be favored, even when currently costly, because of the benefits that will accrue to distant descendants (Lehmann 2007, 2008).
(v) facilitate the evolution of cooperation (Lehmann 2008; van Dyken & Wade, 2012) and evolve to produce public goods (Chisholm et al. 2018).
(vi) regulate environmental states, allowing persistence in otherwise inhospitable conditions, facilitating range expansion and affecting carrying capacities (Kylafis & Loreau 2008; Krakauer, Page & Erwin 2009), and promoting evolutionary rescue (Longcamp & Draghi 2023).
(vii) drive coevolutionary events, exacerbate and ameliorate competition, affect the likelihood of coexistence and produce macroevolutionary trends (e.g. Krakauer, Page & Erwin 2009).
(viii) strongly affect heritability, and challenges how it is commonly defined and measured (Uller & Helanterä 2020; Fogarty & Wade 2022).
(ix) affect drift and gene flow, for instance, by creating suitable habitat that increases carrying capacities (Gurney & Lawton 1996), or through nonrandom dispersal which biases gene flow (Whitehead et al. 2019).
Chisholm RH 2018. The role of pleiotropy in the evolutionary maintenance of positive niche construction. The American Naturalist. 192(1): 35-48 Shows that positive niche construction can both evolve and be maintained when it has other beneficial effects via pleiotropy.
Creanza N, Feldman MW. 2014. Complexity in models of cultural niche construction with selection and homophily. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 111(3): 10830-7 Presents a model that includes selection and homophily as independent traits that influence the fitness and mate choice determined by another trait.
Fogarty, L., Wade, M. J. 2022. Niche construction in quantitative traits: Heritability and response to selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 289:20220401. The authors develop a quantitative genetics model of niche construction, and show how the response of a phenotype to selection, its rate of evolution, and its heritability, are all strongly affected by niche construction.
Kylafis G, Loreau M. 2008 Ecological and evolutionary consequences of niche construction for its agent. Ecology Letters. 11: 1072-1081 This model shows that this niche construction allows the persistence of plants under infertile soil conditions that would otherwise lead to their extinction.
Laland KN, Odling-Smee FJ, Feldman MW. 1999. Evolutionary consequences of niche construction and their implications for ecology. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences USA. 96 :10242–10247 Models niche construction using two-locus theory, incorporating additional processes of resource renewal and depletion.
Lehmann L. 2008. The adaptive dynamics of niche constructing traits in spatially subdivided populations: evolving posthumous extended phenotypes. Evolution. 62: 549–566 Taking an inclusive fitness approach, this model shows how the phenotypic effects of genes extend beyond the life span of the actor by modifying the fitness of descendants.
Silver M, Di Paolo EA. 2006. Spatial effects favour the evolution of niche construction. Theoretical population Biology. 70: 387-400 A spatially explicit treatment of niche construction illustrates how niche-constructing traits can drive themselves to fixation in the absence of direct selection.
Van Dyken JD, Wade MJ. 2012. Origins of altruism diversity II: runaway coevolution of altruistic strategies via reciprocal niche construction. Evolution. 66: 2498 –2513 Demonstrates how niche construction can favour altruism.
