Darwin's agential materials: evolutionary implications of multiscale competency in developmental biology

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary Biology
• Developmental Physiology
• Cellular Biology

Background:

• Evolutionary research often focuses on genetic mechanisms and architecture.
• The role of cellular problem-solving competencies in evolution is underexplored.
• Cells, derived from unicellular ancestors, possess inherent capabilities influencing multicellular development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the implications of cellular morphogenetic problem-solving for the evolutionary process.
• To examine how physiological circuits and cellular collective intelligence impact evolutionary search.
• To provide a new perspective on the relationship between genotype and anatomical phenotype.

Main Methods:

• Review of examples illustrating physiological circuits guiding cellular collective behavior.
• Analysis of how these circuits impart computational properties to biological material.
• Exploration of the effects of collective cell intelligence during morphogenesis on evolution.

Main Results:

• Biological structures exhibit a multiscale competency architecture with regulative plasticity.
• Physiological circuits guiding cellular behavior provide computational properties to the evolutionary substrate.
• Collective cell intelligence during morphogenesis influences the evolutionary search process.

Conclusions:

• Cellular problem-solving competencies are a key feature of the physiological software of life.
• This feature helps explain the speed and robustness of biological evolution.
• It offers new insights into how genomes relate to functional anatomical phenotypes.