Andrew J. Black, Pierrick Bourrat, Paul B. Rainey (2020). “Ecological scaffolding and the evolution of individuality.” Nature Ecology & Evolution 4(3): 426–436. DOI-10.1038/s41559-019-1086-9.
Key takeaways
Seeded from citing papers, not read. An externally imposed population structure (discrete resource patches with dispersal between them) can give collectives of cells variation, differential reproduction and heredity at the collective level before the collectives have any mechanism of their own. Griesemer and Shavit (LIT-188, §2) cite it for a “scaffolded imposition of a linkage between cell growth rate and dispersion” and fault its “classical island migration” setting for neglecting Wright’s shifting-balance tradition.
Standing in the record
Registered on 2026-11-01 from the re-reading of LIT-188 (NOTE-173). NOTE-173 notes that LIT-005 names it as a test case. It is the constructed case in which collective boundaries are imposed from outside before any are produced from inside, which is CLAIM-194’s distinction and CLAIM-522’s, posed as an evolutionary model.