The dual landscape model of adaptation and niche construction

Wright’s “adaptive landscape” has been influential in evolutionary thinking but controversial, especially because the landscape that organisms encounter is altered by the evolutionary process itself and the effects organisms have on their environments. Lewontin offered a mathematical heuristic describing the coupling of niche construction and adaptive evolution. Here, we propose a “dual landscape” model to view these relationships. Our model represents change as simultaneous movement on two landscapes, each a function of phenotype and environment. This model clarifies the evolutionary feedback generated by niche construction. We relate our model to Lewontin’s niche construction equations and illustrate it with three examples.