Lars Witting

Evolution on Earth produced larger and larger lifeforms with across-generation gene replication increasingly embedded in more and more organised replicating units. Natural selection theory did not explain this evolutionary unfolding for almost 150 years, consolidating Darwinian evolution as a contingent diversifying, rather than force-driven directional, process. I review recent selection theory that predicts the evolutionary unfolding of the major lifeforms, and the allometric scaling of their life histories, from the population dynamic force of the density-frequency-dependent interactive competition that unfolds from a continued selection increase in the net energy that organisms use for replication. This argues for a radical change in evolutionary biology, and I begin by discussing the macro evolutionary pattern of lifeforms in relation to the historical development of natural selection theory. I then describe the unfolding selection and discuss its evolutionary implications, focussing on the importance of population dynamic feedback processes in natural selection.