Books

“La Synthèse inclusive de l’évolution, L’hérédité au delà du Gène égoïste“

Published in Septembre 2022 by Actes Sud, Paris.

This book is intended for a wide audience, including scientists, teachers, biology students and biology enthusiasts.

The first part of the book presents general ideas about the Modern Synthesis of evolution (MS) in three chapters. This is the mainstream vision of how evolution and life function, and is taught in universities and schools worldwide. According to the MS, inheritance primarily, if not exclusively, results from the transmission of variants in the DNA sequence of parents to their offspring.
     You will learn that there are two very different concepts of genes which are often conflated, leading to misinterpretations and drastically diminishing the predictive power of the MS, particularly in the medical field.

The second part of the book illustrates, through eight chapters, that inheritance can also be generated by the transmission of a variety of variants. Although these variants are not engraved in the DNA sequence and are therefore not of a genetic nature, they are surprisingly strongly transmitted from parents to offspring, sometimes over many generations. Published examples of non-genetic inheritance relate to yeast, plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates (including mammals and humans) in relation to pollution and metabolic disorders (e.g. various diet-related disorders such as diabetes), as well as heart, testicular, renal disorders and numerous behavioural traits (e.g. depression, mental stress, anxiety, fear, addictions and self-harm). The main channels of non-genetic transmission involve epigenetic, cultural, ecological, microbiota and protein configuration variants. The latter are proteins with the correct amino acid sequence but not the correct 3D structure, which can lead to prion diseases such as mad cow disease or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The third part of the book establishes a new conceptual framework derived from the MS that allows for the integration of all recent discoveries concerning the various channels of heredity beyond the mere transmission of DNA sequences. Chapter 12 presents the general principles that comprise the MS. In six subsequent chapters, I revise the principles of the MS and propose six new principles that, when combined, can form a new evolutionary synthesis. I refer to this as the Inclusive Evolutionary Synthesis (IES) to emphasise its ambition to incorporate all inheritance mechanisms into a single, integrative framework.

The fourth part of the book analyses the consequences of non-genetic inheritance for evolution and its implications for medicine and conservation biology. Through the many examples developed in this book, the reader will realise that the existence of non-genetic mechanisms of inheritance has the potential to drastically reshape many fields of medical research, sometimes overturning all current knowledge. This could be the key to finally finding cures for some serious disorders that are having a negative impact on society as a whole, even though we’ve invested a lot of time and money into the idea that these disorders are genetic.

Clearly, accounting for the existence of non-genetic channels of inheritance could considerably enhance our ability to advance medical knowledge in the near future. This is one of the goals of the Inclusive Evolutionary Synthesis.

Richard Dawkins, author of the famous “Selfish Gene”, provides in the foreword a very telling illustration of the importance of the non-genetic replicators that are at the centre of this book.

Note that only the French version is available today. However, an extended and completed version in English will be soon published under the title “Darwin’s lost symphony, Building the Inclusive Evolutionary Synthesis”

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“L’hérédité comme on ne vous l’a jamais racontée“

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“Behavioural Ecology“

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“Écologie comportementale“

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“Dispersal“

Clobert, J., Danchin, É., Dhondt, A. A. and Nichols, J. D. 2001
Oxford University Press, New York

A scientific book in English involving a large number of authors specialists in the various subjects relevant to the study of Dispersal

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Book chapters

• Danchin, É., Heg, D. and Doligez, B. 2001. Public information and breeding habitat selection. Chapter 17. In Dispersal (Clobert, J., Danchin, E., Dhondt, A. A. and Nichols, J. D. eds) : 243- 258. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Ronce, O. Clobert, J., Olivieri, I. and Danchin, É. 2001. Perspectives for the study of dispersal evolution. Chapter 24. In Dispersal. (Clobert, J., Danchin, E., Dhondt, A. A. and Nichols, J. D. eds) : 340-357. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Danchin, É., Cézilly, F. and Giraldeau, L-A . 2008. Fundamental Concepts in Behavioural Ecology. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 55-53. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Cézilly, F., Danchin, É. and Giraldeau, L.-A. 2008. Testing Hypotheses in Behavioural Ecology. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 55-95. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Danchin, É. and Wagner, R. H. 2008. An information driven approach to behaviour. In : Behavioural Ecology. Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 97-131. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Dufty A. M. and Danchin, É. 2008. Hormones and behaviour. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp.185-228. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Boulinier, T., Mariette, M., Doligez, B. and Danchin, É. 2008. Choosing Where to Reproduce – Breeding Habitat Selection. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 285-321. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Clobert, J., de Fraipont, M. and Danchin, É. 2008. Evolution of Dispersal. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 323-359. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Danchin, É. and Cézilly, F. 2008. Sexual Selection : Another Evolutionary Process . In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 363-426. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Cézilly, F. and Danchin, É. 2008. Mating Systems and Parental Care. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 429-465. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Danchin, É. and Giraldeau, L.-A . 2008. Animal aggregattion : Hypotheses and Controversies. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 503-545. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Møller, A. P. and Danchin, É. 2008. Behavioural Ecology and Conservation. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 647-664.. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Møller, A. P. and Danchin, É. 2008. The behavioural ecology of humans. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 667-691. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Danchin, É. and Wagner, R. H . 2008. Cultural evolution. In : Behavioural Ecology, Danchin, É., Girladeau, L.-A. and Cézilly, F. (eds), pp. 693-726. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Pocheville, A., and É. Danchin. 2017. “Genetic Assimilation and the Paradox of Blind Variation.” In Challenging the Modern Synthesis. Adaptation, Development, and Inheritance (Ed. by Humeman, P. & Walsh, D.), 111–36. Oxford: Oxford University press.
• Danchin, É. 2022. “More than Fifty Shades of Epigenetic for the Study of Early in Life Effects in Medicine, Ecology and Evolution.” In Development Strategies and Biodiversity – Darwinian Fitness and Evolution in the Anthropocene, Costantini, D., Marasco, V. (Eds), 3–35. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
• Danchin, É. 2023. “Chapter 18: From the Modern Synthesis to the Inclusive Evolutionary Synthesis: An Einsteinian Revolution in Evolution.” In Evolutionary Thinking Across Disciplines, du Crest, A., Valkovic, M., Huneman, P. & Reydon T.A.C. (Eds), 26:401–27. Syntheses Library, Springer.
• Danchin, Etienne, Guillaume Isabel, and Sabine Nöbel. 2024. “Culture in Insects.” In The Handbook of Cultural Evolution, 1–19. Oxford Handbooks Online. Oxford University Press.