Biological Constraints

Biological constraints are factors which make populations resistant to evolutionary change. One proposed definition of constraint is "A property of a trait that, although possibly adaptive in the environment in which it originally evolved, acts to place limits on the production of new phenotypic variants." Constraint has played an important role in the development of such ideas as homology and body plans.

Any aspect of an organism that has not changed over a certain period of time could be considered to provide evidence for "constraint" of some sort. To make the concept more useful, it is therefore necessary to divide it into smaller units. First, one can consider the pattern of constraint as evidenced by phylogenetic analysis and the use of phylogenetic comparative methods; this is often termed phylogenetic inertia, or phylogenetic constraint. It refers to the tendency of related taxa sharing traits based on phylogeny. Charles Darwin spoke of this concept in his 1859 book "On the Origin of Species", as being "Unity of Type" and went on to explain the phenomenon as existing because organisms do not start over from scratch, but have characteristics that are built upon already existing ones that were inherited from their ancestors; and these characteristics likely limit the amount of evolution seen in that new taxa due to these constraints.

If one sees particular features of organisms that have not changed over rather long periods of time (many generations), then this could suggest some constraint on their ability to change (evolve). However, it is not clear that mere documentation of lack of change in a particular character is good evidence for constraint in the sense of the character being unable to change. For example, long-term stabilizing selection related to stable environments might cause stasis. It has often been considered more fruitful, to consider constraint in its causal sense: what are the causes of lack of change?

The most common explanation for biological constraint is that stabilizing selection acts on an organism to prevent it changing, for example, so that it can continue to function in a tightly-defined niche. This may be considered to be a form of external constraint, in the sense that the organism is constrained not by its makeup or genetics, but by its environment. The implication would be that if the population was in a new environment, its previously constrained features would potentially begin to evolve.

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