The burrowing of an earth worm produces

Dinner: Pasta spek e piselli, Strudel di verdure e formaggio, Verdure al vapore, Insalata amp, DessertAfter Rosetta Stone Language an afternoon catching up on email (bar a brief walk to the harbour for pictures and to buy some water) we settled into an evening lecture by John Odling-Smee on Niche Construction a key concept in modern theories of evolution. John was also my companion at the Dinner which followed (although he sensibly avoided the Grappa) and a wide ranging conversation started at lunch continued through the evening. Towards the end, the moon thankfully duplicated its behaviour of the previous night and I managed to get one photograph which at least gives and impression of its beauty. Mind you I am now convinced I need a new camera, Mine is 4 years old and these days response time and low light capability have improved. The big question - Cannon or Nikon? Once made I am committed for life ..Either way, back to niche construction. Its something I've known about for sometime, but I hadn't realised its importance, or the fascination of the detailed examples or the implications for human evolution in the short as well as the long term. John introduces the subject with the example of an earthworm. The burrowing of an earth worm produces a partially self constructed Language Learning Software world, in which the earthworm suborns its environment to overcome a deficiency in its own makeup. Normally terrestrial animals have kidneys that retain water, fresh water animals get rid of it and marine animals get rid of salt. The earthworm is still hanging on to the kidney function of its aquatic ancestors, hence the need to use the soil to augment its poor digestive system. There are several other examples. Ants that use formic acid to kill off all plants other than their host in Ant Gardens. In one study the Garden was over 800 years old, so we have ecological inheritance.Organisms also modify their environment, adaption is a two way street. In consequence we have reciprocal causation in which both natural selection and ecological inheritance are in play, the result of which is something called niche inheritance. The first picture on the left shows the traditional view of evolution based on natural selection. This shows the traditional emphasis on genetic inheritance by individuals. In contrast with that, if we add in the idea of Niche construction we end up with something more sophisticated as show on the right.The implications for humans are major, as here we have cultural niche construction. The example give for this is the development of lactose intolerance in a single gene in human systems (-13.910T in case you were interested). If we look at Neolithic DNA then the gene is not present, in the modern day those of us with pastoral ancestors can drink milk, those German Learning Software without cannot.