Abstract
The origin of life remains one of the greatest enigmas in science. The immense leap in complexity between prebiotic soup and cellular life challenges historically "chemistry-forward"and "biology-backwards"approaches. Evolution must have bridged this gap in complexity, so understanding factors that influence evolutionary outcomes is critical for exploring life's emergence. Here, we review insights from ecology and evolution and their application throughout abiogenesis. In particular, we discuss how ecological and evolutionary constraints shape the evolution of biological innovation. We propose an "eco-evolutionary"approach, which is agnostic towards particular chemistries or environments and instead explores the several ways that an evolvable system may emerge and gain complexity.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-12 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Evolution |
| Volume | 78 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE).
Keywords
- complexity
- eco-evolutionary feedbacks
- ecology
- evolution
- origin of life