Étienne Danchin
Directeur de Recherche émérite CNRS
Last update: June 2026

Researcher at:
Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale (CRCA)

(Former co-head of the Labex TULIP (Tulip) from early 2011 to the end of 2019).

Address:
Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale (CRCA), 
Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), 
CNRS UMR 5169, 
Université de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées, 31062 Toulouse cedex 9. FRANCE
New email: etienne.danchin@utoulouse.fr

Research interest

Auto-replication is the essence of life. Reproduction implies the transmission of information across generations to allow the reconstruction of new individuals at every generation. Concepts of information are thus central to biology and evolution. Today, the mainstream vision both among scientists and in the society is that this trans-generationally transmitted information boils down to the sole information encoded in genes (ie in the DNA sequence). I call this vision the ‘sequencic’ view of life.

However, many fields of biology provide evidence that this sequencic view of life is no more tenable because we now have evidence that inheritance may be produced by variants that, although not engraved in the DNA sequence, are nonetheless faithfully transmitted across generations (Danchin et al. 2004, 2010, 2011, 2019a and b; Danchin 2021).

Hence, biology is currently undergoing a profound mutation leading to the emergence of a new evolutionary synthesis to replace the current Modern Synthesis of Evolution that emerged in the middle of the 20th century when genetics merged with Darwinian natural selection approaches.

I advocate that if we are to integrate all known dimensions of inheritance, we may well do it thoroughly. This is why I propose to call the new synthesis the Inclusive Evolutionary Synthesis to flag its ambition of completeness.

There are many forms of trans-generational information transfers. In particular, cases where information is extracted from conspecifics (ie social learning) can trigger information transfers across generations, thus leading to Cultural inheritance (Danchin et al. 2004, 2010, 2011,2019a and b 2018; Danchin 2013). The essence of culture lies in the transmission of information across generations by social learning. Owing to several correcting processes such as conformity [ie the disproportionately likely adoption of the most common variant within the local population (Boyd & Richerson, 1985)] variation among population can be faithfully transmitted across generations. Such variation then meets the three conditions that trigger evolution through natural selection:
1- There must be cultural variation;
2- There can be a consistent link between cultural variants and the fitness of individuals bearing that variant. This is the selective pressure leading some behavioural variants to be more likely to be transmitted than others;
3- And the key characteristic is that variants are transmitted to and therefore inherited by offspring (we speack of vertical transmission).
Consequently, cultural variation is open to cultural evolution by natural selection in the same way as genetic variation is open to evolution through natural selection.

My research mainly deals with non-genetic inheritance, more specically on the case of cultural inheritance.

Keyword

Evolution, Ecology, Behavioural Ecology, Non-genetic inheritance, Mate choice, Habitat choice, Coloniality, Group living, Animal Culture. Experimental approaches.

Biological models

The kittiwake bird (Rissa tridactyla), and the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster).