TY - JOUR
T1 - The evolution of information storage and heredity
AU - Jablonka, Eva
AU - Szathmáry, Eörs
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Marion Lamb and Geva Rechav for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript, and Giinter Wagner for inviting us to the symposium where we met. Support by Riidiger Wehner to ESz. in the form of a guest professorship is gratefully acknowledged. This work was supported in part by the Hungarian National Scientific Research Fund (OTKA). The authors spent a year at the Collegium Budapest.
PY - 1995/5
Y1 - 1995/5
N2 - Many important transitions in evolution are associated with novel ways of storing and transmitting information. The storage of information in DNA sequence, and its transmission through DNA replication, is a fundamental hereditary system in all extant organisms, but it is not the only way of storing and transmitting information, and has itself replaced, and evolved from, other systems. A system that transmits information can have limited heredity or indefinite heredity. With limited heredity, the number of different possible types is commensurate with, or below, that of the individuals. With indefinite heredity, the number of possible types greatly exceeds the number of individuals in any realistic system. Recent findings suggest that the emergence and subsequent evolution of very different hereditary systems, from autocatalytic chemical cycles to natural language, accompanied the major evolutionary transitions in the history of life.
AB - Many important transitions in evolution are associated with novel ways of storing and transmitting information. The storage of information in DNA sequence, and its transmission through DNA replication, is a fundamental hereditary system in all extant organisms, but it is not the only way of storing and transmitting information, and has itself replaced, and evolved from, other systems. A system that transmits information can have limited heredity or indefinite heredity. With limited heredity, the number of different possible types is commensurate with, or below, that of the individuals. With indefinite heredity, the number of possible types greatly exceeds the number of individuals in any realistic system. Recent findings suggest that the emergence and subsequent evolution of very different hereditary systems, from autocatalytic chemical cycles to natural language, accompanied the major evolutionary transitions in the history of life.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0029105908&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0169-5347(00)89060-6
DO - 10.1016/S0169-5347(00)89060-6
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AN - SCOPUS:0029105908
SN - 0169-5347
VL - 10
SP - 206
EP - 211
JO - Trends in Ecology and Evolution
JF - Trends in Ecology and Evolution
IS - 5
ER -