Ecotrophic Character of Primate Evolution.

It may have been PT Barnum or the designer of the Field of Dreams who said that if we build it, they will come. While they have been among the first to vocalize the concept, nature actually preempted them in its application. Whether we examine the fossil record or the depths of the sea, we find that nature accommodates whatever niche is afforded by geologic or climatic processes. Is there an environ too hostile for life? Presence not only of bacteria but also of higher forms (e.g., worms) at volcanic vents suggests the adaptablity and resiliance of life.

The fossil record clearly demonstrates that a new organism fairly rapidly replaces a life form that can no longer survive in a given niche, be it geographically, geologically or biologically-defined. The classic example is that of the various morphotypes of saber tooth tigers, whose extinction and reinvention repeatedly filled vacated niches four times in 28 million years. Intriguingly, preservation of morphotype was at the expense of genotype, with unrelated families (not even felidae) serially replacing those that went extinct. Was primate evolution similarily a form of ecotrophism?. (Read more)