Epigenetic Processes and Evolution of Life

About this book

The book covers the possible story of emergence of life and its subsequent evolution, emphasizing the necessary evolutionary step negotiation of a common "language set" which kept all inhabitants in the biosphere together, ensuring a basic level of understanding among them. The book focuses on "protocols of communication" (both genetic and epigenetic) representing norms shared and understood across the whole biosphere, enabling a plethora of holobiotic relationships. Cooperative nature of organismal evolution and epigenetic processes as a major force in evolution are also covered. Topics discussed are illustrated in detail on selected casuistics.

Contents

Introduction
- The Manifold of Prebiotic Evolution
- Preconditions
- Metabolism First
- Replicators' – Code first

Life from Nonlife: Establishing Rules and Codes
- Proteins
- 'Universal Cell'
- Life Is
- Pillars and itinerary of the biosphere
- Biospheric games

Towards a New Manifold: The Biosphere
- Dating Life's Appearance
- Origins: Biosphere LUCA
- Reconstructing the Past, Making Sense of the Present

Concepts of Heredity and Theories of Evolution
- Descent with Modification
- J. B. Lamarck
- After Lamarck: Organic Memory
- Experimental Embryology
- Units of Heredity
- The Age of DNA
- Modern Synthesis
- Evolutionary Developmental Biology
- Phylotypic Stage
- Modularity
- The Rise of Epigenetics
- Phenotypic Plasticity
- Organistic System Approach
- The "Phenotype First" Approach
- Niche Construction
- Philosophical Approaches
- Philosophical Turnoff on Causality

New Dimensions of Diversity
- On Digital
- Shaping DNA
- Proteins
- The Hairball
- Targeted Epimutations
- Combing the Shapes of Nucleic Acids
- Protein Modularity
- Unrooted in the Norm yet Faithful to It

Information Boom
- Quorum Sensing
- Signal Transduction
- Chance, Necessity, and Gratuity
- Processing and Responding
- Simplexity

Morphogenesis
- The Tradition of the New
- Multicellularity
- Phylotype again
- Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance
- Biased Mutations

Evolution by Cooperation: Communication between Different Lineages of Life
- On Lichens, Squids, and Coral Bleaching
- Protists
- Intracellular Symbiosis in Multicellular Organisms
- Mycorrhiza
- Bacterial Consortia
- Mimetic Rings

I, Holobiont
- Human Holobiont
- Variation in Microbiome Within Individuals
- Colonization Determinants
- Functions of Microbiome
- Fecal Transplants
- Holobiont as a Unit of Selection
- Criticism

Life as interpretation
- The Nine-Word Game
- Species as Cultures

References

Customer Reviews

Biography

Jana Švorcová (1982) studied both philosophy and theoretical and evolutionary biology at Charles University, and currently works at the same department as Anton Markoš, her former supervisor. Švorcová teaches theoretical biology and publishes papers concerning non-genetic inheritance, evo-devo and the philosophy of biology.

Anton Markoš (1949), is a biologist at the Charles University in Prague, Czechia (department of philosophy and history of science). He works and teaches cell biology, theoretical and evolutionary biology. His books in English are Readers of the Book of Life (2002) and (with co-authors) Life as Its Own Designer (2009). Recently published papers include subjects such as in epigenetics, biosemiotics, language metaphor of life, and morphogenesis of bacterial colonies.