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Abstract:
The evolution of complex life forms, such as multicellular organisms, is the result of a suc cession of major evolutionary transitions. Several attempts have been made to explain the origins of such transitions, many of which have been internalist (i.e., based largely on internal properties of the ancestral entities). Here, we show how an externalist perspective can shed new light on the question of major evolutionary transitions. We do this by presenting the ecological scaffolding framework in which properties of complex life forms arise from an external scaffold. Ultimately, we anticipate progress will come from recognition of the importance of both the internalist and externalist modes of explanation. We illustrate this by considering an extension of the ecological scaffolding model in which cells modify the environment that later becomes the scaffold giving rise to multicellular individuality.
