Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis: Mutual Constraints
Résumé
This chapter explains that the ethological dynamics of development cannot be conceived without describing simultaneously the environmental dynamics, or without taking into consideration permanent exchanges of information between the organism and environment concerned, and words or classification systems that represents an organized collection of discontinuities projected onto the continuum of nature in evolution. The chapter suggests not only that ontogenesis depends on the phylogenetic past of the egg and the environment in which it develops, but also that the phylogenetic flow is orientated by genetic flow in many populations toward radiating evolution within natural ecosystems. However, it remains essential to analyze the morphophysiological causes of behavior; to study the dependency with respect to ecological factors and the impact on the environment; to establish ecoethological balances and to express them in terms of survival; but it seems no less essential to widen the comparative line of study and, to this end, to better interpret roles played by behavior in the assimilation of matter to structures and in the assimilation of time to matter.